


The Twins

by Tommehbell



Category: Black Dagger Brotherhood - J. R. Ward
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 12:11:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11230689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tommehbell/pseuds/Tommehbell
Summary: Winter James just graduated from NYU and is on the fast track for a scholarship to Harvard for her PhD work. Her twin sister, Logan, just finished her masters in Linguistics life is finally going their way, even if they've been sick for the past few weeks. Unbeknownst to them, the twins are days from their transition, which would be great if they hadn't been raised by humans without any knowledge that they were sired by a vampire. Their father skipped town before they was born and their mother died in childbirth.Vishous is cracking at the seams, and he can't stop it. His brothers are becoming domesticated and his shellan has better things to do than worry about his mental state. He's about to snap and the aftermath won't be pretty.Zypher, the de facto second in command of the Band of Bastards, is a sex god. Well after Rhage that it. The male is capable of taking a female or a woman to hidden realms of desire, and he is just as deadly on the battlefield as he is in the bedroom. He is happy for Xcor and his shellan and their young, but something is missing fro his life and he doesn't know if he's ready to fall in love.Till he meets the twins with the diamond eyes.





	1. Daughter Mine

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any of the characters of the BdB, except for Winter and Logan James. They are all mine.

With his three-piece Italian suit, skinny tie with the diamond neck tie Trez looked every inch the successful business man he was pretending to be. Butch was helping his fill out his closet. The man was more obsessed than a female. Him and Phury was all smiles when they came back from New York Fashion Week. Any other time Trez would have found their ministrations pleasant and submitted willingly. Now he didn’t give a shit how he looked. If he could he would have crawled into a vat a naphalm and kissed his ass goodbye, but that wasn’t an option. iAm made it perfectly clear if Trez went into the Fade iAm was going to follow. 

Trez was a selfish asshole, but he wouldn’t do that to the male. He’d chew his own skin off with hot sauce before he caused his brother harm.  
He stood in his office watching the rats without tails lining up outside his club. The eager co-eds, with their bouncing breasts and expensive little clutches, looking for something illicit and wholly dangerous. The guttersnips hoping some goddess would bless them with a night in the sack. The old heads hoping something young and firm would let me feel their tight skin for a little bit. The cougars on the prowl hoping to find a young cub that didn’t mind stretch marks. All of teased, fried, died and laid to the side. Their eagerness for an escape was palpable. It coated his tongue.  
Trez hated them all. He hated how happy they looked, how easily they laughed. He hated the blissed out expression they achieved with his liquor, and other substances. He hated that they could escape. Trez tugged at the collar of his shirt. He fought the urge to tear the things form his chest. He hated being in his skin; he hated the press of life upon him. He knew now why the caged bird sang. He wanted to wail at the heavens to release him from his body. He wanted to be wherever Selene was. He wanted his happy back. He wanted his heart to beat again. 

His man at the door opened the club and the partiers started to stream in. The DJ cranked up the music and got the lights strobbing through the refurbed warehouse. The working girls blended right in with the clientele. Soon several of them pulled johns into the private rooms. He couldn’t stand to look at them anymore; he retreated to his office and sat at his desk doing a whole lot of nothing. His crew was efficient and good at their jobs. They took care of everything. 

~~X~~

Winter, and her twin sister Logan, with their group of friends stood in the line to the club freezing their collective tits off. It was early February in upstate New York and she was wearing a tiny little yellow dress that barely covered her butt, her sister in a similar dress in green.  
She’d never worn so little clothing in public before. She wasn’t a Puritan, but being the science geek that she was she spent every waking moment in the lab working on various projects. The last thing you wanted was a chemical spill when you were wearing booty shorts and a belly shirt. 

“Fuck it’s cold.” Jocelyn shivered and wrapped her arms around her midsection. 

“Bitch you have on pasties and a mini skirt.” Sosan shot back. The group laughed. The line moved up a couple of people. They could almost make out the pimple on the bouncer’s face now. 

“My rent is due next week.” Jocelyn stated simply. 

“So this is marketing?” Winter asked, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. 

The fiery Latina fluffed her hair looking like the cat that caught the canary. “In a manner of speaking.” 

“So your mattress really is your ATM?” Logan grinned. 

“Better than a black card any day.” The girl winked. They fell into a fit of giggles that carried them through the line, past the bouncer who looked at the twin’s driver’s licenses for at least 5 minutes, and into the coat check area. 

None of them had brought coats, it ruined the outfits they were rocking, but it was a nice spot to check makeup, hair, cellphones and condom count, the latter being Jocelyn’s favorite club accessory. Winter had no plans on taking anyone to her bed. She wasn’t a prude and she had a healthy appetite for sex, but she was dead tired of anonymous sex with Tinder dates. It was draining and lately the men she’d been bringing home were catching feelings for her and she didn’t have time for that type of entanglement. When did fuckbois start learning how to be boyfriend material, she wondered.  
She was shoving love and all the shit that went with it on the back burner for now. Getting your heart yanked out and stomped on once was good enough for her. She was not looking for a repeat of Derek. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice and I might think about yanking your throat out and shoving it up your ass, letting my crazy ass sister with the dagger fetish do it. Winter grinned at the imagery as they walked out into the dance floor properly. Logan bumped shoulders with her. “What’s got you grinning like a fiend?” She asked. 

“Thinking about you castrating Derek.”

“Hell yeah but you had to go and had all my knives.”

“Logan they would have put your ass under the jail for slicing up that white boy.” Winter popped a piece of gum in her mouth. 

“Too true twinny.”

The club was in an old industrial building and save for a clean up job and putting in a bar and dance floor the wide-open space of the club was untouched. Currently the floor and the walls were pulsing with sound, flashing lights and people. Dj Khalad was assaulting her ears with a vengeance, but it felt good. She needed to get out of the house and the lab and be around living breathing people. It was a good mix of suburban white folks and urban black folks. She even caught some Hispanic faces in the lights. Winter loved her people she really did but sometimes she needed a break from the black nightclubs. She got sick of ducking and trying to cover just so she could get her booty shaking on. Logan was the more ‘hood’ of the James twins. 

The group sidled up to the long bar and ordered a round of cocktails. A few Long Islands, a Sex on the Beach and a Screwdriver. Winter wanted to get buzzed not drunk. Besides they had pre-gamed at Sosan’s house for three houses. Only a high tolerance for the drink kept all of them on their stilettos. 

Drinks in hand they made their way onto the dance floor. Khalad bled into Big Sean, into some old school Monica and Brandy. Winter could feel the bass in the balls of her feet and it travelled up her spine, setting up shop in her sensory strip. It set her whole body to vibrating, blissing her out. She gave into the feeling, letting it envelop her like a thirsty lover. 

~~X~~

A few minutes turned into nearly four hours, but finally Trez emerged from his office for a walk through. He stalled out at the edge of the dance floor.  
sHaDoWs was teeming with the unwashed masses, and Trez wanted to firebomb the entire place. The crush of human bodies in the place was making his eyeball itch. They danced and rubbed up against each other, the lust so thick in the air he could choke on it. The lump of ice in his chest was starting to spread to the rest of his body and he could give a good goddamn about it.  
Beyonce blared through the sound system and the crowd went apeshit. 

Every able bodied chick in the joint raced to the dance floor, and every horny guy was right on their tails. Trez stayed in the shadows watching, not really tracking anything. Big Rob and Silent Tom moved through the dance floor, giving anyone looking for trouble the hairy eyeball. 

A knot of girls in the center of the dance floor drew his eye. He couldn’t say what it was about them that got him to focus. It was a group of five girls, all of them dark skinned beauties. Ranging from six feet to four foot eight. Dressed to the nines and having the times of their lives. A few of them were drunk, but nothing serious or dangerous. They seemed to be dancing around a pair of twins in the center.  
Their bodies moved fluidly in sync under the lights. They couldn’t have been more than four foot eight inches tall, but they captivated everyone on the dance floor. Most of the men orbiting around them kept rearranging their pants and looked at the pair with naked lust in their eyes. It was dangerous playing the seduction game with the meatheads that come to sHaDoWs. There wasn’t a night that passed that security didn’t have to break a few hands or arms or legs because someone guy didn’t understand that no meant not today motherfucker. Something at the throat of the twin in black flashed in the strobe lights. Trez blinked the stars out of his eyes and refocused on the twins. Both were thick in the thighs and the backside with a little more around the waist. He wouldn’t have called them fat they weren’t starving or shopping for a size six either. Their breasts bounced in time with the music and he cursed his dick for noticing. Fuck him he was a bastard, barely a year since sending Selene into the fade and he was thinking about getting nuts deep in a pair of twins. 

His asshole of a libido was sidelined as a knot of drunken frat boys pushed their way through the crowd toward the group of girls.  
The drunker of the group grabbed one of the twins around the waist, yanking her back into his body. She squirmed, but he held on tight, she twisted back and forth trying to get free. 

The girl’s twin was having none of that. Quick as a snake she pulled her arm back and popped the grabby guy right in the nose. He dropped her sister, spitting mad and looking for a target. “Got a situation on the dance floor.” He said softly into his earpiece. This was a car crash looking for a guardrail. He lunged at her, narrowly missing her shoulder. 

Silent Tom caught the idiot by the back of his jacket. He lifted the guy a few inches off the ground and shook him like a ragdoll. His buddies looked ready to defend him till Big Rob stepped out of the shadows. They wisely backed off and allowed the bouncers to escort them to the doors.  
Trez marked his face for remembrance. The puny twins might not have been one of his girls but he didn’t take violence against any women or female very well. It would be his supreme pleasure to track the fucker down and introduce him to his own nuts.  
Making sure everything was in hand one last time he retreated to his office. He checked on his girls, nodding and smiling at a few of them as he did. The door closed with a soft click, shutting out the noise of the dance floor. 

~~X~~

Vishous stood back to admire his handwork. After the epic battle with the lesser his brothers were down on the daggers and he wanted to do something special for the BoB. Those assholes really came through on a pinch and savagery on that scale deserved to be rewarded. Five Aircobra throwing axes gleamed in the firelight. Xcor was a beast with his lady; V figured the others had taken the hand to the task of learning to wield axes. Lined up next to the axes were six sets of daggers. It was some of his best handiwork. 

He was sore and sweaty from his work, but it was a good sore. The sore after a hard day’s grind and you’re ready to throw in the towel. His muscles were twitchy and ready for some relief. He rolled his shoulders a few times then cracked his next. The mansion really needed a physical therapist or a masseur in the ranks. He made a mental note to look through the vampire directory for some. He couldn’t ask any of the shellans to take a course. That surefire way to have a mansion full of pissed off bonded males looking for an empty grave.  
He’d been in his forge for days. Not eating, no sleeping. Nothing to do but the work. He needed something for his mind to focus on. Not once did Jane come to check on him, not that he expected her to, but it would have been nice if she had. He could feel himself getting sucked under and there wasn’t a goddamned thing he could do to stop it. His hand itched, and he blinked. His vision blurred. He dragged his hand across his face; it came away wet. 

He was crying. Vishous, son of the Bloodletter, the nastiest fucker in the Brotherhood did not cry. Especially not because he was feeling sorry for himself. He growled and banked the fire in forge. Starting the shutdown process.  
He mentally kicked his own ass. He was not going to turn into a pansy who cried over spilt milk. After their slayer showdown there’d been a lot of hurting going on and she was needed, but everyone was stable, she could have come once. It wouldn’t have killed anyone.  
V growled again and finished cleaning up and making sure his forge was cooling down. He was being a Grade A fuckwad about Jane he knew and he tried not to be but it was his nature. The Bloodletter beat and had others fuck any warmth right out of him. He was a hollow shell without nothing left. No wonder Jane threw herself head first into her work. Could he really blame her? 

He didn’t need to be alone right now. He was in a dangerous place, his mood getting darker by the minute, and there was no telling where his mind was going to wander. Making a phone call was out of the question and he knew Butch would help if he asked, but he wasn’t there.

Yet. 

Toweling off and slipping into a black muscle shirt he climbed out of the belly of the house into the kitchen. Preparation for First Meal was in full swing. The house was full of vampires and young. Vishous could feel all their brain patterns. And to think he missed having them in his head. 

What a jackass. 

The doggen were moving with military precision. Three of them were working the grills. Steaks, bacon, sausage links or every variety were flipped, removed from trays and placed on platters. Fruit was peeled and quartered quickly. Mounds of pancakes, French toast and waffles few in size every few seconds. The sound of dozens of eggs being cracked bounced around the kitchen every few seconds. Fritz ordered servants here and there as needed. V would have loved to get the old man out in the field. They might have had the war with the lesser licked a century ago under his command.  
Bitty and Nalla were helping. Well Bitty was helping, slicing apples and oranges. Nalla was munching on whatever it was Bitty kept slipping her when no one was looking. Fitz saw. With a quick hand he whipped a small black bib with glittery skulls on it around the toddlers neck before Bitty handed her another piece of juicy fruit. 

V crouched low, ducking behind of the three islands in the kitchen. He glanced around, none of the doggen noticed him, or they did and they figured he was doing something important. Neither Bitty nor Nalla looked up from their fruit. He crabbed walked forward, keeping his head below the countertop, silent as the grave. He stole around the second island and managed to make it to the stove across from the kids. Something must have alerted the toddler, a smell, or a sixth sense, her father was one of the better trackers in the Brotherhood, for she whirled around in her chair, yellow eyes searching for the source. 

“Uncle Fish.” The toddler announced. V couldn’t help but grin. He suspected Nalla could pronounce his name but choose not to. 

“You’re mine little one.” He grinned and sprang forward. She squealed and tore out of the kitchen. Her mad giggles rang out in the foyer as he chased her. 

He could hear Bitty hot on his heels. “Run Nalla.” Bitty shouted jumping on V’s back. The girl weighed nothing, but V pretended to stagger under her weight, catching himself on the wall. Rhage came down the stairs with a mug of tea in his hands. 

“What are you feeding this girl? She weighs almost as much as you true.” V reached back and swung Bitty around and threw her high into the air. She laughed, her arms pinwheeling before she sailed back into his arms. 

“She’s built like her dad. Ford tough.” Rhage swallowed the rest of his tea eyeing his brother and his adopted daughter as they chased Nalla, the toddler terror, around the foyer. 

Rhage leaned against the wall. It was good to see V smiling. The brother had been in such a black mood lately he’d been giving Z the creeps. And that took a lot of doing. Rhage wanted to ask V what was doing, but V wasn’t the sort of male you made personal inquiries of. Maybe he would talk to Mary. 

Yeah and maybe unicorns could fart rainbow dust all over Caldwell. 

~~X~~

Logan danced like a parole doing a dime out for good behavior. Sure she got a rush when she discovered some obscure historical fact hidden away in the library, but there was nothing like having panty sweat from dancing your ass off. 

Her body was slick with sweat and her face flushed with exertion. There was a stitch at her side but she didn’t care. For six years she’d been buried in schoolwork or in a library coughing up dust bunnies, sure she still had fun, but nothing like the wonton abandoned of the past two weeks. It was a great day to be alive and she was going to enjoy every minute of it.  
Her sister was likewise dancing up a storm. She was sweating her perm out and didn’t give a good damn about it. 

“Want another round?” Shanique shouted at her. Logan nodded and rocked back in time with the music.  
Her sister was twirling like a top around the group giggling the whole time. It was pressure release for both of them. There was only one way out of the hellhole their life had been and neither of them was going to pass it up. 

She thought about getting up on one of the dancing platforms and shaking what her mother gave her, but she a few of those girls looked positively territorial and the last thing Logan wanted was to knock a bitch out and get booted from the club. Those bouncers had armed and dangerous stamped all over them. It would just crank her shit right out to get kicked out of the club. Plus it might ruin the night if she got arrested for popping someone in the mouth. That would be the feather in her graduation weekend. She would end up in jail with busted knuckles because she was a hot head. That’s why it was such a godsend when her teachers realized she was just as intelligent as she was vicious. She would have ended up six feet under, her sister a hollow shell without her. 

Just as Kendrik Lamar blared from the speakers a hot flash tore through Logan’s body, her vision fitzing out on her. “Win.” She gasped. Winter doubled over with pain before the word left her lips. She thought they’d licked whatever virus was running rampant through their nervous system weeks ago, but she could feel that familiar rumble building in her stomach. 

The twins grabbed onto each other for support. They were the only things keeping themselves off the floor. 

“We’ll be back.” Logan all but shouted. They shuffled off before Sosun could say anything. 

“I’m going to be sick.” Winter whimpered. 

“Hold on twinny.” Logan, the stronger of the two dragged her sister through the knot of bodies on the dance floor. She got a few dirty looks and a shove or two, which earned the offenders an ocular fuck you. She was so not in the mood for a throw down. They managed to make it to the other side of the club in record time. The line to the ladies bathroom was ridiculous, she didn’t have time for this. Winter was going to blow chunks and it wasn’t going to be pretty, and she was going to be right on her sister’s heels. Her stomach was churning, her skin was burning and a headache was threatening to park itself right in her frontal lobe. 

She pushed her way to the emergency exit at the back. “Oh please open,” she begged. She pumped the handle three times before the door released. She didn’t have time for this. Logan stumbled outside, dragging her sister by the arm at this point. They barely made it to a scant bush before throwing up. Her stomach squeezed and she threw up again. Logan braced herself against the wall as her body shook with the violence of her explosion. She couldn’t keep a hold of her sister who slumped to the ground, only managing at the last second to avoid face planting in her own vomit. 

“When did I eat corn?” Came a muffled question that send Logan into a round of throwing up and laughing. Trust her twin to be a cornball when they were trying to get rid of their spleens by any means necessary. 

~~X~~

He could feel it, the freight train barreling right through his frontal lobe. 

“Fuck.” He was getting sick of this. “Goddamn.” He lurched up from his desk, scattering excel spreadsheets and liquor order forms. The room went all tilt-ta-world on him. The ringer on his phone going off barreled into his brain matter and took up resident. He didn’t need to look at the screen to know who it was. His brother was better than ESP when he was in trouble. Their bond wouldn’t have been stronger if they had been twins, but he didn’t want to talk to him right now. Didn’t want all the concern and shit in his head. There was enough going on in dome without his brother’s concern taking up space. 

Right, move motherfucker. One step, shuffle, then it was two steps around the desk and then it was a all out lurch across the room. Two tries to get the hand of the door to turn, and then it was out into the wall of sound that was his club. He really was going to have to talk to someone about the volume of the speakers. He was seeing stars just from the sound alone. His balls tingled with the bass vibrating through them. 

The migraines were getting more frequent. Used to be once every couple of months, more if he was stressed. Now he was averaging one a week. Fuck his life; fuck it straight to hell. He weaved down the hallway praying to a deity he didn’t believe in that no one saw him. He couldn’t handle the compassion right now. He was slowly splintering and he wanted to do that in peace. He threw his arm out to catch himself on the wall.  
He felt movement at his back. Big Rob was right on his heels. “You ok boss?” Trez tried to push him away, but the pain was already spreading. He was going to need his strength to get home. iAm was at the colony with his mate, and he was not letting the motherfucker leave his mate to tend to his brother. He was so not doing that shit, and Xhex had the night off, probably with her mate as well.  
Fuck him. 

“Just need to get home.” He wheezed. His vision went on a little vacay. “Stay. Lock up.” Was all he could squeak out. Right, time to go. Any longer and he wasn’t going to make it. The last thing he wanted was one of his human staff to call for an ambulance. He all but threw himself toward the exit, practically kicking the door open. 

The last of cold air took his breath away, but it cleared away some of the pain and he was able to focus for a few moments. He couldn’t drive himself. He needed to ghost himself home. 

A pair of squeaks pulled his attention. 

The twins from the dance floor were bent over throwing up. Well one was kissing asphalt and the other was barely hanging onto the side of the building, but she was headed to Gravelland any second now. The one standing looked at him, dried sick at the corner of her mouth, her hair wave of black hair mussed and standing on end.  
His world spun for the second time tonight. 

He collapsed face first in the dirt. “Ow.” He whimpered. 

“Oh my god, are you okay?” One of the twins limped over to him, stopping to wipe the vomit from her cheek with tissue from her purse. She knelt down, struggling to roll him over. He could hear her grunt with the effort. The other one dragged herself over to help her sister. A pair of identical hands patted him down gently. His body jacked off the pavement as contact was made.

“Fucking hell what’s wrong with him?” One of them said. 

“Overdose maybe. Get him on his side before he aspirates into his lungs.” The other offered. 

They got him flat on his back and he sucked back the oxygen. It took a couple of tries but he managed to open his eyes, only to recoil. Two pairs of chocolate brown diamond eyes transfixed him. “Fuck.”

“No thanks.” The one on the right said. 

“Not into crack heads.” The one on the left offered. 

If he head wasn’t a pounding sore on top of his neck he would have bared his fangs and told the chippies to fuck off, but he was in no shape to boot his saviors in the ass. He inhaled deeply, pulling their scent deep into his nose. He could smell their change coming, and judging by the heavy smell of human over both of them they had no idea what was about to hit. They had days at the most. 

He reached for one of them; either of them, well he needed to get both of them to safety, more to the point he needed to get both of them to the mansion. Even with his brain on scramble he could see their bloodline written on their face. This bomb was going to be bigger than Hiroshima.  
A left hand and a right hand grabbed onto his. They had the same grip. “You on something?”

“No.” He croaked. 

“What’s doing? You need an ambulance.” One of them started digging around in her purse. He got a flash of her iPhone screen before he grabbed their wrists. Twin masks of fury nearly immolated his face. “Don’t ruin both our nights asshole I’m only trying to help.” The one in black hissed. He could see the muscles in her arm contracting, preparing to let loose with a rabbit punch to the face. She tried to yank out of his grip. 

“You better let us go. I’m the nice one and I carry mace.” The one in yellow said.

“You have to come with me.” Shit he was going to black out if he didn’t hurry. 

“The hell we do. Let go.” They both braced their legs and tugged. They barely moved him an inch, but he respected the effort, even if he didn’t have the time nor the patience for it. 

He closed his eyes, pulling in oxygen. He blocked out their squirming, before the one in black could ring his bell, he dematerialized.  
Vampires couldn’t carry passengers when they went ghost, but shadows had no such restrictions. Though it was always nice when your head wasn’t in a vice grip and your tagalongs weren’t fighting you tooth and nail the whole way. He had to mentally knock out the feisty one, he had almost dropped her over the Hudson River, not that it would have been a total tragedy, but he figured her sire would put a boot up his ass once he found out. 

Seconds later they fell out of the sky. He fell on top of one of them, her head bouncing off the driveway with a crack.  
He cursed, rolled over and threw up. The other one landed in a heap and groaned. “What the actually fuck dude.” She moaned as she rolled over and threw up again. 

Trez threw out a very loud and very pointed mental shout. He just hopped the asshole was in the mansion.  
~~X~~

Vishous was in the process of depositing Bitty back on her feet when Trez’s mental SOS assaulted him. It just about drove him to his knees. Fucking shadows. They were worse than sympaths with the mental Kung fu. He stumbled into the wall, catching himself before he swan dived across the foyer. 

“What the fuck. I mean hell. Damnit.” Rhage cursed grabbing for V. 

V slapped at his hands. “Trez is in the driveway. Migraine.” He squeezed out. Rhage stopped by the billiards room and grabbed a few more hands. They beat feet outside.

The fucking shadow didn’t know how strong his mental game was. V’s eyes were rolling around in his head from the force of the shout. He was going to be sick. He stumbled into the bath under the stairs to throw up. He didn’t have much in his stomach but an apple and PB&J but it all came up just the same. He wiped his mouth, washed his hands and shuffled back out into the foyer. The door was still wide open, a cold breeze freezing his nuts in his leathers. 

V was not interested in playing nurse mate to the shadow. He tried it once; he was still trying to get vomit out his shitkickers.  
“Shit Vishous bust a move out here my brother.” Z shouted. 

He wasn’t in the mood for this. “Fuck.” He jogged through the door out into the courtyard. 

Outside Trez was flat on his back; the throw up around his head giving him a halo effect. But he wasn’t the Live at 6 even everyone was staring at. Sprawled out next to the guy were a pair of dark skinned human woman; he could smell human blood in the air.  
One of them was in the process of throwing up again; the other was out cold with a slow moving pool of blood under her head. 

Tohr stood guard over the moving one. She stopped vomiting long enough to glare up at him. The brother leapt back as if she shoved a Taser up his ass. “Shit.” 

Why would Trez bring women back to the mansion, especially in his current state? Wrath was going to eat the shadows nuts for breakfast.  
Tohr looked at him, his face going grey around the endges. “What’s doing my brother?” Rhage, never one to be left out of the loop stomped over to Tohr. He glanced down at the woman. “Holy fuck.” 

Now all of them wanted to know what was doing. They gathered around the woman, each of them looking at her, and then glancing at the other one.  
Zadist gently rolled over the bleeding betty. He lifted one eyelid. He hissed and would have dropped her if she weren’t already in bad shape.  
“What the fuck Z?” V wasn’t in the mood for whatever shitshow was going down. The human’s eyes fluttered as if her brain were struggling to restart itself. 

V’s heart stopped. 

“No fucking way.” He pushed the peanut gallery out of the way and knelt down. He thumbed back the woman’s eyelid. An unfocused chocolate-rimmed diamond iris stared out into space. He glanced over at the other one. An identical pair of chocolate-rimmed irises glared at him. 

He fell back on his ass. “Fuck me.”


	2. Chapter 2

Zypher was getting pretty goddamn tired of himself. The sheets he was laying in, the room he was fucking in and the whore riding his cock like a bucking horse. He was tired of it all. The whore wasn’t to blame. She was a pro, great at her job with a body that was pleasant to look at he. He had been visiting her off and on since their arrival in the New World and after their first session, she gave Zy her personal cell phone number and a promise that it would be on the house. Which he later found out meant she would fuck him for free. He didn’t mind paying, but it was nice not to. 

He might have been a bastard and a killer but he liked those he fucked to be willing. Her blissed out eyes tried to focus on him as she leaned down for a kiss. He avoided her mouth and captured a fist full of her hair. He bowed her back and she moaned loudly. 

“Oh fuck yeah daddy.” She bounced harder and he was really just trying to get everyone over with. But he wasn’t going to just toss her aside without making sure she got off. He reached down between their joined sexes and tickled the hood of her sex. She squealed and thrashed. “Oh god, oh god, fuck.” She bucked for a few more minutes and then finally stilled. Zy carefully lifted her and laid her out on the bed. He pulled the hotel sheets up to her chin and tucked her in like a burrito. 

“Will you call me again?” She murmured. 

He glanced down at her. “I canne say.” He was going to jettison her number form his mobile the moment he stepped free of the hotel room but there was no reason to tell her and be an asshole about it. 

She nodded as if she understood. She was a professional after all, catching feelings was bad for business, but fuck her if he wasn’t her best client. 

He slipped free of the bed and walked into the bathroom, shutting the door tightly. He hated showering in the rooms he used to fuck whores in, but he hated walking into the King’s home with their stench all over him. No on said anything to him about it, but it made him feel dirty nonetheless. 

He cranked the hot water and waited for it to get scalding. He stepped in, hissing as the water burned down his chest. The soap and hand towel were rough, but he liked it like that. Eh scrubbed ever inch of his body, twisting around straining his neck to reach the parts of his back that rarely got the attention. He even got between his toes. 

Charity was dead to the world when he stepped out of the steamy bathroom. He laid a grand on the nightstand and smoothed the hair from her face. The fast living had taken her beautiful features and hardened them. Under the layers of makeup he knew she could still be a showstopper, but his cock just wasn’t in it anymore. 

He dressed, quickly, slipped from the room, did a quick check and then dematerialized back to the King’s mansion. It never stopped amazing him the turn of events his life had taken. 

Born of an unknown father, rumors were it was a Brother, and a whore mother; he was left at the mouth of the Bloodletters camp when he was but 10 years old. His mahmen was beaten to death in front of him, in his little pretrans body he had been unable to save her. She had been a wonderful mahmen, despite her night job. He missed her with a fierce pain that licked up his chest. Visions of her brown hair floating on the wind kept him from the pits of the Dhund as he grew up in the war camp. 

During the day his mahmen would read to him any and everything she could get her hands on. His favorites were the Greek tragedies. She would deepen her voice and act out all the heroic deeds. He would laugh and clap. She would swoop him up in her arms and swing her around peppering his face with kisses. 

The male who killed her beat her to death with his shoe. He accused her of stealing form him. His mother was not a thief, but the male was convinced she stole his signet ring to blackmail him for more money. Though his mother was a whore she was very frugal with her money and made sure to put enough away to take care of herself and her son. She did not need to steal from him nor blackmail him. His mother liked the freedom being on the fringes of vampire society offered her. 

She was barely two days in the Fade before a grandmahmen he had never met marched into the cozy little cottage, drug him out by his ear and dumped him at the war camp. She told the Bloodletter to hold nothing back. Zep was the son of a dead whore and deserved nothing good in life. 

The Bloodletter took the challenge to heart and made Zypyher’s life a living hell till the day he was in turn killed by his blooded daughter. The war camp was the stuff of nightmares, and it lived up to all the horror tales told about the place. He spent the first 15 years of his life in a consistent state of hunger and fear. After his transition he was fight and kill or be fucked in front of an audience and potentially killed, depending on the Bloodletters mood. 

Zy learned quickly and never had to bow before anyone. Though he had brutally punished any and all males he bested in combat. There was not refusal of that rule. Legend had it that a male of the glymera refused to participate in the rapes, but since the Bloodletter was the loser in the exchange that tale was spoken in hushed tones well out of the earshot of the male in question. 

After the death of the Bloodletter’s death he stayed with Xcor and though they were never homeless they never enjoyed the type of luxury he was revealing in now. Cold, damp, drafty castles, and then condemned buildings and abandoned homes around the city had been their home for the past year as they tried to take the throne from Wrath. Zypher didn’t have a political bone in his body and he never cared who had the throne. He had to admit that all the stories he heard about Wrath son of Wrath were good. The male was a great king, beloved by all and sorely missed after lessers slaughtered him and his shellan. 

The current Wrath was everything they had heard about. The Bling King was brutal to the point of madness with his enemies, fiercely loyal, and awe inspiring. After the battle at the factory the king had opened his arms and his home to him and the other bastards. Everyone in the house followed his example. He had his own richly appointed room with a private bath, food, booze, TV, money and cars whenever he wanted them. Other than his mother, no one had ever given of themselves so freely. 

And Xcor was a different male with his female and twins by his side. It was a strange little family with the birth male Qhinn and his hellren as another set of parents, but they all loved those youngs and Zy approved of it all. Young needed love and protection in measure. 

He put his face into the camera and waited a beat. The door was pulled open by the wizened doggen that seemed to be the captain of the house. 

He bowed. “Welcome home sire.” It still amazed Zy to be addressed as such, but Fritz wouldn’t have it any other way. “I’m afraid Last Meal will be delayed, there are guests in the house and everyone is down in the clinic, but if you would like some victuals I can set something out for you.” 

Zypher shook his head. “No thanks. If I’m hungry I can take care of myself.” Fritz blanched. “Shit Fritz.” He ran a hand through his hair. He was used to taking care of himself and the other bastards when it was called for. He above them all was the more nurturing of the group. “How about I leave the dishes if I fix anything.”

The doggen brightened. “It would be my pleasure to attend to your dishes personally.” He bowed and then scurried off to do whatever it was he did when he wasn’t following after you hoping you dropped a few crumbs for him to sweep up. 

Zy took the stairs two at a time up to the second floor. He turned down a hallway, going past the King’s study, the door was closed and he didn’t hear any sort of meeting going on, and he kept going. 

“Its unnatural.” He heard Xcor’s holler and he went from casually walking to torpedoing down toward his leader’s room. He burst into the room with a dagger drawn. He was sucker punched in the face with a smell so unholy his eyes watered and his nose made a valiant effort to wiggle off his face. 

He threw his arm up across his nose and mouth. “What the fuck is that smell.”

Xcor whirled around holding a nappy in one hand and a wipe in another. Blay and Qhinn were standing in the corner laughing so hard they had to hold each other up to keep off the floor. 

“I tried to warn you, but went all “when I was in the Bloodletters war camp” on us. So I call this cosmic justice.” Qhuinn teased, his mismatched eyes twinkling with unshed tears. 

The baby Rhampage was kicking his legs so hard on the changing table the thing was rocking slightly. He seemed overly pleased with the mess he had in his nappy. 

“The young is responsible for this smell?” Zy asked incredulously, his nose still trying to make a break for freedom. “What exactly are you feeding him?” The baby Lyric seemed to be sleeping in her crib ignoring the entire hubbub about her brother’s epic bowel movements. 

“That’s my son right there.” Qhuinn beamed. Zy couldn’t understand why one would be proud of their young producing such a smell, but it was funny to see Xcor trying to rid himself of the offending nappy and then get his adoptive son into a fresh one before the scamp peed on him again. 

“He’s still on a bottle. I don’t want to see what this morphs into when he’s on solid food.” Blay answered. He shuddered and offered Xcor the rubbish bin. His leader tossed the nappy away like a live grenade. 

“We heard some shouting earlier. Do you know what’s going on?” Qhinn asked after Rhamp had been changed, fed, burped and settled in his hellren’s arms for a quick rock to sleep. Xcor was in the process of changing Lyric and getting her ready for her feeding. 

“Think some unexpected guests showed up. Last Meal is delayed. Everyone is down in the clinic.” That was all Zy knew. He watched the family drama play out a little longer before backing out the door to leave the males alone with their children. He almost choked on the love in the air. His eyes started to sting and he was not going to disgrace himself by crying in front of the Brother, his mate and Xcor. 

He rubbed at his sternum and locked himself in his room. 

~~X~~

Wrath sat behind his desk marking his brother’s movement across the carpet. He didn’t need to see hi brother’s face to know what he looked liked. Wrath was there at the birth of his son and he was still in awe of the miracle, but then he’d wanted his child. Yes he had been scared shitless of getting Beth pregnant and the chaos of LW’s birth almost had him shitting in his leathers, but the joy afterwards. He couldn’t describe it. His son was the stars in the sky, rotating around his Beth, his rising moon. 

Vishous was about as paternal as a rusty chainsaw. His father was the sort of male that the devil paid respect to, and though his mother was the deity by whom the entire race was birthed she was still a tricky bitch that got Wrath’s molars grinding. In short, the brother was never the warm and fuzzy sort of male. He made it clear to anyone who would listen, he did not want children and Jane didn’t seem the type to want them either. 

V did another circuit around the room. Wrath pinched the bridge of his nose, a headache was starting right behind his eyeballs and he had a feeling it was going to be a long night. 

“Are they yours?” Wrath had to break the tension or he was going to scream. He heard the flick of a lighter. “You light that and I’m going to forget you just had a mind fuck and I’m going to use your face to polish my desk.” He growled. Shit storm or not George wasn’t going to have the sniffles just to stroke V’s addiction. 

“Shit.” The Brother muttered, but the lighter was snapped closed and disappeared to wherever V kept the damned thing. 

Several minutes passed. Wrath counted to 100, pinched the bridge of his nose once again, then counted to 1,000. “Talk Vishous.” His patience was wearing pretty damn thin. 

He could hear molars grinding. “Yeah they’re mine.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on Wrath’s part, and a violent expulsion of breath on V’s. He hadn’t really expected V to admit it, but Vishous was a lot of things but liar was never one of them. Not that he couldn’t be deceptive he just didn’t feel the need to waste brainpower of trying to come up with a lie. “You sure.” Just so everyone was on the same page and all. And though Wrath would never, ever admit to anyone, he did like the grapevine in the house. Nothing was kept secret and he liked the gossip as much as the rest of the peanut gallery. 

Long sigh. “Yeah I am. Can’t fake a family resemblance. They look like Payne and me. Well scratch that, they are ¼ our size and darker than a Hershey bar, but essentially they look like me.” Another sigh. “I remember their mother.” There was a soft creak from the reinforced sofa. 

“Human?”

Wrath could feel the nasty glare V threw at him and he grinned, flashing his fangs. “Never before Jane.” 

“Was she one of your subs?” V’s kinks weren’t a secret, but before everyone moved into the mansion together the brother’s personal lives were their own. Wrath couldn’t even remember a time he had known where any of them lived. Other than Darius, who constantly invited Wrath over and Tohr whom he’d help move into the house he and Wellsie had shared. 

“Hardly. She was a professor at Harvard. Met her after a lecture about 24 years ago.” 

“How could you not know? I mean shit V.”

“Come on my lord you remember how I was before Jane. Fuck first, ask questions never. Fuck me if I bothered to question why she asked me to service her. I mean I’d heard stories about a female’s needing and the asshole that I am I wanted to experience it first hand. After it was done she booted my ass out.” V rubbed his sternum.

If he had had it in him he could have seen himself settling down with the female. She was feisty, smart as hell as the first dark skinned vampire he had ever met in his life. She had been half shadow and vampire. Able to go out into the sunlight and ghost in and out like Trez and iAm. He wanted her the moment he saw her. She turned him down flatter than a burnt pancake and didn’t that just turn him on. It took nearly a year before she met him at a dinky little human restaurant in Harlem. They made a date to meet the following week, but a skirmish with lesser the next night had him nursing broken ribs and a knife wound for two nights. By the time he had gone to her house she was the claws of her needing. It only took her almond eyes imploring him before he was naked and deep in her. He called one of his male subs to give her blood. He was not going to let her have at his vein. He wouldn’t go that far. 

Two days later, after she recovered she told him to go. He cleaned himself up, redressed and left. He never looked back. 

Wrath chuckled, a deep rumble started in the pit of stomach. “Smart female.”

“I’m not the nurturing type, true.”

“No shit, but fuck they aren’t kids anymore. I might be blind but I can smell the change looming. Those are adults V. They had to grow up without you. If you claim them you’ve got a steep learning curve my brother.” Wrath wasn’t the end all of parents, he’d only been in the job for a couple of months, but he had the greatest parents in the world and he wanted to live up to their example. If he could help his brothers along the way he was willing. Out of all of them he and Rhage were the only ones with decent parents. Phury and Z might have had great parents if Z hadn’t been stolen in the night. Tohr’s father had been a whoring asshole of the finest order, only claiming his son on his deathbed. Qhinn’s family was better off dead, he would never tell Qhinn that, but it was the truth. Butch’s father could kiss a sawed off as far as Wrath was concerned. 

He grew quiet. “They are my blooded daughters.” 

“Then they will be afforded the rights and privileges as such.” There was some more fidgeting on V’s part and another stretch of silence. “Spit it out my brother. Now is not the time to play it close to the chest.”

V cursed, then cursed some more. “Your blood is the purest we’ve got.” Wrath had been expecting the request. It didn’t take an astrophysicist to see that he would be called upon for his blood. 

“If its ok with Beth I will do my best, but you may need to ask someone else I don’t think I can be responsible for both of them V.”

“I understand my lord.” 

“Well we better get down to the clinic before they wake up. This is going to be a fucking nightmare for them.” Wrath stood, George came to attention, pressing his body into his master’s. Wrath grabbed the handle of George’s harness. V opened up the door and let Wrath pass through first. 

The king recoiled back, nearly slamming into Vishous’ chest. “What the fuck.” His nose wiggled. George whined, covering his nose with a paw. 

“We’ve got to do something about Rhampage. The kid’s shit in the right concentration could be weaponized.” V held his breath and hustled Wrath down the stairs and through the tunnel before either of them took a clean breath. 

~~X~~

They went through the hidden panel and Tohr’s office. And of course nearly the entire mansion was milling around the corridors in front of the clinic doors. Even iAm and the Shadow queen were in attendance. V figured they had heard about the twins’ coloring and figured everything out. 

Jane was front and center, she wasn’t pissed, but she certainly wasn’t happy about the situation. Shit, neither was Vishous. He never planned on having young and he sure as fuck didn’t plan on them being dropped out of the sky by Trez days before their transition. 

Manny cleared his throat when it was clear Jane was still trying to process what she wanted to say. “Both of them appear healthy, with mild concussions.” V nodded at the information, it was nothing he couldn’t have worked out himself but he appreciated it. 

“So are we getting you a father’s day gift this year?” Leave it to Rhage to cut through the bullshit and crank his shit right out. 

V ground is molars before answering. “Yeah they’re mine.”

“No shit Sherlock.” Butch offered. 

“Did you know?” That was Jane. 

V glanced at his mate. Her green eyes clear, but he could see the tears threatening to fall. Fuck him, seriously fuck him, but he wasn’t going to lie. “I had a feeling but I never bothered to check back with their mahmen.”

“Who was their mother?” iAm’s mate asked in her quiet voice. 

“She was a professor at NYU. Aja was her name.”

The shadow queen nodded. “I will see if they have family in the territory. We do not like to abandon our own.” There was no censure in her statement, but the sucker punch was still there and V winced at the blow. Oh all the vile, fucked up things he had done in his life he knew this would be at the top of the list. He had serviced a female during her needing for his own selfish reasons and then just walked away without a care in the world knowing this was a good damned chance she would carry his young and possibly die on the birthing bed. He had let his young get shuffled into the human world. There was a special place in the Dhund for males like him. 

He cleared his throat. “Thank you.” 

Butch clapped him on the shoulder. “Its never too late my man.”

“You think they want a male like me as their father?” He wasn’t sure he wanted them, he didn’t know them, but from the looks of everyone’s faces he wasn’t going to get out of this. 

“I think they would be damned lucky.”

“You’re biased.”

“And you’re stalling.” Z mumbled. “Get in there and meet your daughters.” Nalla gurgled from her papa’s arms. The Brother’s eyes were yellow but they were narrowed in V’s direction. 

He reached for the door and stalled out. He couldn’t do this. He was the worst male in the world to be a father. This was his mother still fucking him. Her last parting gift as it were. Jane’s hand landed gently atop his. When contact was made, her ghostly hand filled in and became solid. He looked over and nearly wimped out and cried at the gentle expression in her eyes. She used his hand to twist the doorknob. The door swung open. 

His daughters were laid out a top two beds. Even in their sleep they had turned toward each other. He had to admit he made some cute fucking kids. They were pixie little things, no bigger than a human teenagers. Smooth dark skin, almond shaped eyes, full lips and button noses. The one on the right smelled of vanilla, the one on the left smelled of apple pie. Their chests rose and fell in sync with each other. It was something he noticed that Phury and Z did when they slept in the same room. 

“Good thing they look like their mother though.” Butch came up behind his roommate. 

Vishous grinned. 

That was a good thing.


	3. Chapter 3

Zy couldn’t take it anymore. The walls were closing pulsating in and out; the air was too hot, his skin prickling as if he were just out of his transition. He jumped off his bed, threw his body into some workout clothes and made his way through the mansion, down to the false door and into the tunnel. He’d been in his room barely a hour. It was nearly two in the afternoon and he guessed everyone had drifted off to their various tasks after the hoopla over their uninvited guests. 

He could have asked someone but he wasn’t sure he was part of the peanut gallery, as the Brother Rhage liked to refer to his housemates. It just really wasn’t any of his business, and he didn’t have the mental energy to go seek out the answers. 

He pushed into the training center, the sounds of weights smacking against each other like music to his ears. The Brothers Butch and Zadist were putting the bench press through its paces. Butch had nearly 700lbs on the bar, and he had barely broken a sweat. They both nodded to him as he entered. He returned the nods and jumped onto the treadmill. 

Qhinn gave him an entire lecture how to avoid emotions and thinking too hard when you needed a break from yourself. Apparently before his mating he had become an expert in running from yourself, both figuratively and literally. It was the perfect balm for his yo-yoing emotions. 

Fuck if he knew what was wrong. Everything was perfect as far as he was concerned. There was naught to complain about, and yet he felt something was missing. Well he was a broken male that left a lot to be desired, but he’d always felt complete. He had his wits, his skills and his bastards. What else did this life hold for one such as he? 

Goddamnit! He growled deep in his belly as his feet pounded the treadmill. The machine squealed at the mistreatment, but he didn’t give a rat’s flying ass. 

Others drifted in and out of the gym as he ran. It seemed he wasn’t the only one running from things. Even Payne put in a command appearance. She was a damn fine female, tall as a man, muscular in all the right places and fierce as a raging fire. A ball buster if he ever saw one, and wasn’t that just a big turn on, but she wasn’t his type. 

A tiny part of him wanted to fall at her feet and worship her for ridding him of the Bloodletter. He hated the male with a passion he only known for the piece of shit that murdered his mother, but it would have been like fitting himself for his own urn if he attempted to do away with the bastard. But if Xcor had ordered him to he would have fucked the female silly, in a hundred different ways, violating her till she begged him to stop. He couldn’t explain his relationship with the Bloodletter, he heated him but he followed his word as holy writ. 

He was good at following directions like that. 

Several times throughout the day he had to drag one of the sandpaper towels across his face to mop up the sweat that poured from his body. His wet shorts slapped against his thighs, giving him a round of applause every time he finished a mile. He glanced down at the treadmill’s display. He’d run 56 miles in four hours. He should register for the New York marathon he would be a hit. Well if he didn’t go up like a roman candle when the sun hit his ass. Still he pounded on. It was nice just blissing out as he ran. Nothing crowding him, no bothering him and the walls stayed where they were supposed to be. 

His thighs were screaming, his socks a little wet. He was sure either his calves were bleeding or his heels. 

Like he gave a fuck. 

He could keep going. He didn’t really have anything to do this day. 

~~X~~

Winter was floating, on a fluffy white cloud. It was doughy soft and smelled of flowers. She ran her hands through it, fighting back the urge to giggle like a little girl. It circled through the air giving her a great view of New York City and eventually Caldwell. Her twin was shit scared of heights; Winter never got to enjoy being up with the birds. Winter shivered in the chill, briefly wondering when dreams became so vivid, but it felt good. 

She wanted to stay awhile, but there was something she was supposed to do. She could feel her face scrunching up in thought. 

She didn’t know if she had passed out at the club, or. 

“Fuck.” She screamed and lurched awake only to cringe back as her gray matter swam in her skull. She leaned over the side of her bed and threw up. It was a vile mixture of several cocktails and her lunch several hours ago. She sagged back down, her fledging energy levels now totally depleted. She breathed in and out slowly through her nose, battling her stomach into submission. Once she was sure she wasn’t going to upchuck her liver she looked around. She was on the hospital room, in a johnny with yellow moons and silver stars. She wanted to roll her eyes. Either someone thought she was a kid or they had horrible tastes. Her clothes were neatly folded on the chair next to her bed. She shuddered to think of who had stripped her. so maybe everyone had just been the raging delusion of her fevered brain. 

Someone moaned. Winter wrenched around. Logan was stretched out on a similar bed; she was curled up on her side, her perm completely sweated out. Her hair was going to be a nappy mess in the morning. Logan’s thumb was stuck firmly in her mouth. A smile tugged at the corner of Winter’s mouth. Her twin might carry an illegal handgun in her purse and she might have a few assault charges on her record but the girl still sucked her thumb when she was stressed. It was the cutest thing about her frankly. 

She would have climbed into the bed with her sister, but she didn’t want to disturb her. Logan still looked a little green around the gills. 

Winter still felt a little queasy, she was sure there was nothing left in her stomach but air and opportunity, but it refused to settle. After all the heaving and puking her mouth tasted like the underside of a club carpet. She would kill for a toothbrush and a pair of fresh panties. There was an open door in the corner of the room and after pulling herself up and out of the bed she prayed it was a bathroom and not a broom closet. She shuffled across the room careful not to wake her sister, nor end up in the floor. The call button was too far away if she did. 

Winter pushed the door open, and had to catch herself on the jamb. This wasn’t a standard hospital bathroom. Oh no, this was, it was, Winter blinked, knuckled the sleep from her eyes, a girl’s wet dream. 

White marble, with grey veins running throughout, flowed as far as the eye could see. A shower big enough for a block party, a toilet nearly two feet from the ground. She was going to feel like a gargoyle perched atop of the Empire State Building if she could repel up the side of that thing. Thank god for the safety handles. Fluffy towels hung on racks; bottles of shampoo, body wash and conditioner lined a shelf in the shower. Two identical piles of clothes occupied the counter by the sink. Winter wanted to cry as she spotted a toothbrush and toothpaste, but the shower was calling her name, and it would be a shame to change into a fresh pair of clothes without a serious scrub down. 

She stripped out of her club clothes quickly. It took her a minute to get the water temperature right; then she stepped into the shower. It was near a religious experience as the water sluiced down her body. She stood under the spray for a few minutes, hell maybe an hour. She was disinclined to move. She wanted to break out in a Disney song as she washed her body.

There was nothing to cover her hair with, but she’d sweated out her blowout at the club. She was going to be rocking an Afro for a while anyways. Maybe she could get her sister to give her some box braids. 

The apartment she shared with her sister was tiny, efficient and basically a hole in the wall, but it was theirs and they could afford it on their salaries. Logan worked in Manhattan in the special collections of the NY public library. Winter was a research assistant. The pay was shit by NY standards, but it kept them out of fast food or waitressing. And Winter loved their apartment. Bright primary colors splashed everywhere, graffiti all over the walls, overly large furniture you could burrow in and each of them had their own bathroom and bedroom. She loved her sister more than life itself but sometimes when she wanted to strangle her it was nice that they had their separate corners to go cool off in. 

“Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone.” She started to sing. It was the only tangible legacy from their mother. Boxes of old mix tapes. It took her and Logan nearly a year to get all of the songs onto an iPod. She lathered herself from her face down to her toes. The soap smelled of honey. It was a little heavier than the soap she usually used, but she wasn’t going to complain. She was loathed to step out of the shower, but she had to make sure her sister was ok, and Logan was going to want to experience the showerheads. 

She stepped out of the shower, toweled off and brushed her teeth. God it felt good to get the taste of stale puke out of her mouth. 

~~X~~

After the second treadmill died, he had no idea how many more of them they had to bring out; Zypher figured it was time to get off. 

The slapping sound and the smell of burning rubber had been his first clue that he might have been over doing the physical therapy thing, but it wasn’t until he narrowly avoided dive-bombing the run bar that he hopped up on the runner and pulled the stop key. 

The treadmill didn’t so much as stop it gave up the proverbial ghost. It took everything in him not to follow in the treadmills footsteps, but he managed to stay on his feet. He was alone in the gym and for that he was grateful. He was drenched; the gym towel had long ago stopped absorbing his sweat, and in the silence the thoughts and emotions were starting to rise up again. He rubbed his sternum, the pain starting behind his breastplate. 

He meant to make it to his room and shower, but one step off the treadmill. “Fuck.” He barked. Both calves howled in pain. The searing pain took him down to one knee, he gritted his teeth waiting for the pain to recede. Zy counted to twenty in German and then French before he could open his eyes without the room spinning. He growled and stood up. He wobbled out of the gym, leaving droplets of blood in his wake and headed right. He threw his hand out onto the wall to steady himself. The corridor futzed in and out. He had to stop several times to catch his breath. His calves weren’t going to last much longer. Which way to the damn clinic? He continued to hobble, and finally he came to the clinic. It was the only place that smelled of bleach and lemon, a most curious smell. He hoped one of the doctors or that blond nurse was about. He didn’t waste time looking for them, he would just collapse onto a bed and push the call button. 

He pushed open the door, lurching inside. He slapped on a light, pointing his hurting body at one of the empty beds. It took a few blinks to realize the sheets were a mess, and the room carried a heavy feminine scent. He flared his nostrils and pulled the smell down into the pit of his stomach. 

There was a noise from the bathroom. He dropped down on his thighs; hands curling into claws, fangs punching out of his mouth. Zy went into fight mode as a default. 

A figure ran out of the bathroom, a towel hastily wrapped around her body. She got a good look at Zy before opening her mouth and unleashing a toe-curling scream. 

The sound burrowed into his ear canal and went ape shit but he didn’t give a good damn. His brain went on a little vacation; the pain in his calves totally forgotten. 

She was no bigger than a human child, maybe an eleven year old. She was a dark and delicate pixie of a woman. She was fresh from a shower, her skin glowing, and her hair wild, smelling like a hot summer night. Even scared out of her mind she was the most gorgeous thing he had ever had the privilege of gazing upon. Her fear was a spicy note in his nostrils. 

He was still standing in the middle of the room, staring at her. His brain stuck on dumbass. She screamed again and dove toward the other bed. He hadn’t even noticed the second figure on the bed. 

The other woman bolted straight up from the bed; her eyes unfocused and blurry. She blinked. “Winter.” She slurred. There was a bandage at the back of her head under her left ear. She swayed on the bed, her face ashen. The first woman grabbed at her and tried to shield her body with her own. She didn’t have to waste the energy. 

Zy’s brain and body was solidly stuck on stupid. 

They were identical, alike in every way, he thought. His heart squeezed and refused to pump blood to the rest of his body. Zypher swayed in his sneakers. His eyes bounced between the two of them. Something in his body slide into place, the cracks in his psyche mending. His fangs tingled. 

Twins.

His. 

Mine, he brain spit out. 

He took a step toward them, his hand moving of its own accord. “I won’t-”

He was tackled from behind. The freight train took him down fast and it took him down fucking hard. He could feel his liver and ribs protesting. It was like a building being dropped on his without warning. All the breath whooshed from his body in an explosive rush. Starbursts flashed in his field of vision. His face was pushed into the floor; his arm that wasn’t pinned under his big body was wrenched painfully behind his back, his wrist twisted hard.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?” The Brother Vishous growled in his ear. His fangs were bared. The needlepoints were so close to his face he could see the peeling enamel at their base. There was another scream from the bed. The sound lit of a protective instinct that Zy wasn’t sure he possessed before this moment. He tried to twist around to reassure his pixies. They were scared, but the Brother’s arm was like iron. No give whatsoever. 

Running feet, the door banged open a few times, then a lot of voices. 

“What’s doing V?” The Brother Butch asked. His feet came into view. 

“What’s going on?” The other pixie spoke. Her voice trembled. Shit all of this was scaring the shit out of both of them, and it was his fault. “Get off of me.” He growled trying to push himself off the floor again. 

“Get them out of here. No Jane get them out right now.” There were some more shuffles, one of his pixies squealed, the other screamed. He couldn’t see anything. There was a thud, and another shout. 

“She bit me.” Butch yelped. 

“You can’t handle a fucking pre-trans female.” Vishous barked digging his knee into Zypher’s back. 

“You want me to rough up your kids asshole just say the word.” Butch spat. He reached for one of the twins and she twisted from his grasp. If it were anyone else he wouldn’t have cared about manhandling them a little for their own good, but with Vishous you couldn’t tell if the brother was going to give you slap on the back or take your head off. As twitchy as he had been lately not even Butch wanted to find out his triggers. 

“Your kids?” Twin 1 asked, licking Butch’s blood from her mouth swaying at the taste hit her tongue. 

“Winter what’s going on?” Twin 2 asked. She sounded on the verge of throwing…the sound of retching made Zy’s heart squeeze. 

He growled deep in his chest. This was not happening, every bonded male instinct firing rapidly. He got his palm planted on the floor and prepared to buck V from his back. 

The Brother doubled down on the pressure, but if he tried to keep him away from his pixies, he was going to need a MAC truck to keep Zy on his stomach. “Get them the fuck out of here now.” V barked. 

“Don’t touch them.” The voice that poured from Zy’s mouth was so warped with anger he barely recognized it. With a powerful surge of his legs he tossed V off his back like a dog shaking water from its coat. The brother sailed neatly through the air to get within kissing distance of the wall of the room. There was a crunch and then a groan. 

Zypher climbed to his feet, his calves screaming in agony all but forgotten. One of his twins, the towel barely covering her naked form was slumped on the floor, a smear of Butch’s blood on her cheek. Her eyes were brown orbs of wonder as she stared up at him. If the entire household weren’t in view of them he would have swept her off the floor and up into his arms, but his pixies weren’t for the peanut gallery’s consumption. Her sister was blinking like a stunned fish from her hospital bed. Her eyes were still a little glassy. 

In a flash he scooped up twin on the floor and deposited her next to her twin, he threw the heavy hospital blanket over both of them and imposed himself between them and everyone else who had suddenly appeared in their room. 

The doctor Jane ran into the room, going over to her mate. “What the hell happened?” She demanded. 

“Zy threw your boy into a wall.” Butch answered

“What why?” Her fingers flew over V’s head checking for contusions. 

“He tackled me first.” Zypher said defending himself. 

“What the fuck for?” Rhage’s blonde head popped around the doorjamb, his signature Tootsie pop stick hanging from his lip. 

“Why did you call him our father?” One of the twins babbled. 

“Oh shit V’s claiming them?” Phury asked.

“QUIET!” The King roared swooping into the room with a repressed fury that chilled and quieted the room instantly. Vishous climbed to his feet. He was glaring at Zy, but the bastard was pleased to see V looked paler than usual. 

The king took a deep sniff of the room, his head swinging around towards Zy and his twins. “Oh for pity fucking sake. Goddamnit motherfucker.” The king swore. “Everyone get the fuck out. Jane stay and keep V on his feet.”

“I’m not leaving.” Zypher stated. 

The King glared at him. “I know motherfucker you just keep your hands where I can see them.” Zy wisely did not point out that the King could not in fact see a damn thing. The King’s head swung around. “That wasn’t an invitation. Scatter before you piss me off.” Zy had never seen so many people move to fast without killing each other in the process. In a manner of seconds the room was cleared expect fro V and his mate, the king, Zy and his twins.


	4. Chapter 4

Logan vision swam as the bed dipped, wobbled, and then there was a lot of shouting, a few muffled cursing and then a loud crack that made Logan’s limbic system shudder in sympathy. The door crashed open and then all hopes of trying to catch some more Zs was gone. IF she could gather up the strength to be pissed off someone was going to be in trouble. 

But finally there blessed quiet. 

Logan dragged herself into consciousness with reluctance. She blinked a few times clearing her vision. The room was brightly lite and she wished someone would dim that shit. Didn’t they knew she was cracked on the head and nursing the motherfucker of all headaches? She was simply too tired to cradle her head and the pillow was a little too starchy for her liking. 

There was a wonderful smell in the air, like the German Christmas Marts in upstate New York; warm dark spices. The more she inhaled the more the head cleared, the pain receding to a dull roar at the back of her head instead of a icepick behind her eyeball. Her head still rang like a goddamn church bell, but there was nothing to be done about that if no one was going to let her get any fucking sleep. 

Her eyes finally flicked open, “Winter.” She croaked reaching out for her twin. Instantly her sister’s arms wound around her waist. She sought the soft and familiar comfort of her sister. “Did I swallow sandpaper?” She rasped trying to clear her throat several times. Before she would ask Winter for something to drink a large figure loomed in front of her with a glass of water and a straw at the ready. Bless them, whoever they were. She reached out blindly, with shaky hands, but the figure pushed them away gently and brought the straw to her lips. 

The delicious smell was coming from the figure with the water glass. She wrapped her lips around the cool straw and sipped as much as she dared, inhaling deeply as she did. Then hand moved away, tragically taking the delicious aroma with it, and Logan finally looked up, her eyes clearing, at her water delivery person. 

Her breath hitched, her cheeks warming without effort. She didn’t even know her body was capable of blushing. What the actual fuck. The man, no he was something more than a man, was possibly the biggest man she had ever laid eyes on, and being a healthy, beautiful girl she’d had opportunity to lay eyes on a fair amount of men. He loomed over her and Winter, impossibly tall, at least two feet above her modest 4 foot 8 inches; a mop of strawberry blond hair, that flopped over his left eye in a kiss me hard sort of way, topped the impressive package. Hair that looked soft enough to bury her face in. The man radiated lethal grace and controlled brutality. Logan could feel herself heating up as she took him all in. He was clearly the ivory to her ebony, European though with his burnished bronze coloring. He gazed at her with forest green eyes. 

Her hand moved without effort. She went to touch his cheek, but he captured her hand in his massive paw. He was gentle as he brought her hand up to his lips. With gentle and the softest lips he kissed her hand. 

Her mouth parted, her heart fluttered like a butterfly in her chest. “Hi.” She blurted lamely. 

A chuckle rumbled in his expansive chest. The sound tickled something in Logan’s belly, and she found she liked the feeling. 

He turned, grasped Winter’s hand and kissed it just as softly as before. “Hello love.” Voice like slow water over river stones. 

Logan trembled. Her body flared to life. 

“Oh that is just fucking perfect.” Someone growled in the background. 

The spell broke. 

The man, still holding their hands, turned to face whoever was speaking. Instantly his body tensed up. He want from gentle and sweet to batshit aggressive in an instant. A delicious heat licked up her core. 

“Do you see this shit? No, not happening.” Another angry voice added. 

“V calm down.” A female voice was added to the mix. 

Logan couldn’t see anything around the man, but an argument broke out in another language. Logan’s right ear flicked, her brain getting with the program. Logan adored languages, and this was one had roots in the romances with a Germanic flair. 

“Wait what are you saying?” She grasped the man’s wrist with her free hand and he turned to her. 

“Nothing leelan. Just setting some things straight. Are you hungry? Too cold?”

“My head hurts a little, but I could eat something if you got a White Castle laying around here somewhere.” She gave him a small smile. His face lit up. His smile robbed her of breath. 

“Can I examine her? I’ve got some Ibuprofen.” A blonde woman tried to look around the man, but he blocked her view. 

“Sorry Doc Jane, but not with the King and Vishous in the room. My lass there is naked under that towel.” He indicated Winter with a flick of his head. 

A very aggressive looking and extremely pissed of man pushed himself away from a wall. “I’m their fucking father asshole. You don’t kick me out of shit.” The man snarled about to launch himself at the bastard. Jane held him back by the force of her personality. 

“That’s the second damn time someone’s said that. What the hell are you talking about?” Winter jumped up from the bed so fast Logan toppled toward the floor. 

The man moved faster than she could track. She fell over right into his arms a hairbreadth away from face planting on the floor for the second time that night. He scooped her up into his arms like a child and she didn’t give a fuck about it. 

“I’ve got you.” She reflectively snuggled into him. That delicious smell flared into the room and she breathed so deep she feared her lungs would pop. 

“Zypher please let me examine them. You can stay and watch to protect them.” The woman, he called Doc Jane said. 

Logan eyed the woman up and down. She was not one for doctors and this one certainly looked proficiently clinical and cold, and Logan was not up to being poked and prodded by anyone just yet. And right now all she wanted to do was stay right where she was. Fuck everyone else. 

“Just give me something for the headache. I’m fine.” All she needed was a biggest glass of cold Coke and a Netflix account. 

“You aren’t fine, your days away from your transition.” The doctor answered. 

“My what?” Logan tried to quirk an eyebrow but a lance of pain sliced through her frontal lobe. She slumped back Zypher’s arms. What an unusual name; Greek in origin. Logan liked it. 

“Can someone just please explain what’s going on?” Winter had that edge to her voice. She managed to fool everyone into thinking she was the sane, even keeled one. Logan didn’t know why she bothered with the pretense, but she was good at it. But once in a while she went bat shit crazy, and right now she was going mission critical. 

“Put her down Zypher. Let Doc Jane check them out and then you and Vishous can knock each other around and work through your shit.” Zypher’s arms tightened around her.

“Don’t make him leave please.” Logan wasn’t sure whom she was talking to but if they were going to discuss her and Winter she didn’t want Zypher to leave. She didn’t ever want him to leave if she had a say in anything. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake. Fine. Sit your asses down.” A gravelly voice snapped. 

“Who the fuck do you think…” Winter protested. Here we go, Logan thought. Hurricane Winter was making landfall. 

The biggest man, taller than her protector, moved into view. Logan shrank back into Zypher’s arms. 

A long curtain of light sucking black hair swung around his shoulders as he moved. Black Raybans bisected his cruel face, and the fury rolling off him could have been bottled up and sold at soccer matches. “What I think is that I am the fucking King around here and I don’t give a flying fuck who your fucking father is you will not disrespect me in my own goddamn house. So you are going to sit your pretty little ass down on that goddamn bed that I paid for and shut your mouth because I am two seconds away from getting pissed off, and believe me sweetheart you do not want to fuck with my emotions.” Ray Bans said very softly. 

The joy was sucked right out of Winter as sure as if someone stuck a straw in her neck and went all Hoover on the girl. Logan wisely kept her mouth firmly shut. 

“My lord I believe you just used fuck as a noun, verb, adjective and an adverb. I bow to the master.” The one Logan surmized was this Vishous character, chuckled. 

Winter plopped down on the bed without another word. 

The King’s head snapped around to the speaker. “Get on with it V my Martha Stewart is wearing fucking thin right now.” The King moved and took up resident against the wall next to the door. 

Logan’s protector sat down on the bed, keeping her in his arms. With his free arm he pulled Winter in close and snuggled her. 

The one called Vishous stepped into view. 

“Holy shit.” Logan got an unimpeded view of his diamond peepers; an ice blue match to her and her twin’s. 

He cleared his throat all the while managing to glare at Zypher holding Logan and offer a tiny smile at her and Winter at the same time. 

“Well.” The man shuffled his feet suddenly looking nervous. “I’m Vishous, everyone calls me V.”

“Or asshole.” The King offered with a tight smile. The doctor smiled. 

He didn’t speak for several minutes, the tension in the room cranking up with every passing second. Logan’s rolled her eyes, “You’re our dad right?” Logan couldn’t take it anymore, and she really needed that beer mug full of ice cold Coke. 

He looked up at her, the sinister tattoo at his temple seeming to glow. “Yes.” Well at least he was honest. 

Logan could feel her twin stiffen. Her eyes went hot, her mouth twitched, preparing to tear their father a new asshole. “Why now?” Logan beat her to the punch. She got a glare in return. She stuck her tongue out at Winter. 

He ran a glove-covered hand through his dark hair. “You’re about to go through something that’s dangerous and I’m the only one who can help.”

“We’ve managed 24 years without you. I think we will be fine. You aren’t getting your white hat trying to be a dad now.” Logan went to climb out of Zypher’s arms.

“Listen to you father lass.” Zy rumbled. 

“Do I look like a fucking hero?” Vishous growled. 

“Easy V.” The doctor put her hand on Vishous’ arm. 

“No not a hero.” Logan pushed Zy’s arms apart and climbed out. “You fucked our mother. That makes you king of the world right? I bet all your pals high fived you when you got back. Did you take notes? Was she a ten?” She walked over to her father on unsteady feet. Her head really starting to pound the most pissed she got. “Was she good? Did she make you moan?” If it were possible the doctor grew paler. Which was saying a lot as she started off the color of cellophane. “Was she everything you were looking for that night? You were looking for a thot right.” Hot tears prickled behind her eyes.

“Logan.” Winter warned, but she was too far-gone to listen to reason. 

“Don’t Logan me!” She wanted to slap her sister. Now Winter wanted to be the level headed one? “Where the fuck was he!” She shouted at her sister before rounded on her father. “Where were you when Blake twisted Winter’s arm so hard he broke it in three places? Our foster mom made us walk to the emergency room. A couple of crackheads robbed us on the way just for shits and giggles. They busted my eye socket, so I guess it was a good thing we were going to the ER in the first place.” The words were tumbling out faster and faster now. She couldn’t stop if she wanted to. “Where were you when Mr. Schmidt made me suck his dick for our lunch money? He liked to pinch my nipples till I cried.” She heard Winter gasp. Shit, she never told her sister that. “Where were you when our mother died alone and left us sitting in the bathtub for three days? We sat there hungry, in our own filth till the neighbor called the police because of the stench.” The tears were flowing fast and fierce. “Where were you when we needed you huh?” She advanced on him, her eyes blazing, the pain in her head forgotten. 

“Where the fuck where you?” She hauled off and slapped Vishous with all the strength she could muster. She felt the bones in her little finger break.

His head kicked back from the impact and the doctor gasped. 

She tipped forward into his chest, sobbing and beating at him with her tiny fists, the piercing pain in her finger waging a full-scale assault against the pain in her head. He caught her, both of them sliding to the floor. 

Great sobs wracked her body, “Where were you?” She choked out.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the hiatus. The holidays and my husband's immigration paperwork distracted me. But I am back and will regularly update this fic I promise.

Before this moment Vishous didn’t think he had a heart. 

Yes he had a muscle in his chest with six chambers that pumped oxygen enriched blood to his body. But the heart, the seat of emotions, the home of love, he did not have. He may have been born with it, but it had abandoned him long ago. 

He could mimic the emotion and fake it with the best of them, but he knew deep down, to the core of his being, that he was dead on the inside. 

Fucking flatling for 300 goddamn years. 

Every night he spent in his father’s war camp he cried out for his mother. Cried out for the female who birthed him, feed him from her own body, cradled him and loved him. He could remember her scent, honey and crème. He held on to that memory as long as he could. He wanted to get back to that special golden place of a mother’s love. It was the best feeling in the world, what he could remember of it. He saw it every time he watched Bella and Nalla or Mary and Bitty, Beth and LW. The love rolled out of them. No matter where he was in the house he could find any of them by the love staining the place. He appreciated the Pit now more than every. He didn’t begrudge his brothers their families, but a tiny part of him envied them and then a tinier part wanted everything to come crashing down around their ears. 

He’d craved any form of love anyone had been willing to give, but it never came. And then with a surgeon’s precision he had been expertly warped into the soulless bastard that more than lived up to his birth name. 

A sniffle brought him back into his body and back to the present. He cradled his daughter up against his chest because right now in this moment, he prayed to a mother he hated to make him a different male. She owed him this. 

“Help me.” He pleaded silently. He didn’t know if his mother heard him from wherever she was but he sent the mental SOS anyways. 

Hid daughter, Logan, her twin had called her, poured out everything as she sobbed, giving him a front row seat to her breakdown.

It was killing him as sure as a .40 to the membrane, and breaking his little goddamn heart. She beat him softly in the chest with her fist. It didn’t hurt but she needed to keep doing it. 

He heard her sister crying softly from the other side of the room. His eyes snapped up to hers. He held her gaze for an age. Something softened in her eyes, a soft sob leaving her throat. He held out his free arm to her, in a flash she had thrown herself at him snuggling down beside her sister. He hugged them both to his chest, inhaling their delicate scents. 

Tears shone in Jane’s eyes, and even Wrath sat in the hospital chair wiping at his cheeks with the back of his hand. Zypher looked positively murderous and V just didn’t give a damn if the bastard was mad at him or the world. 

He wasn’t sure how long they sat on the floor, suspended in time, but a soft snore from Logan alerted him that his young had cried themselves out and dropped into a deep sleep. 

He looked down, the vision of them blurred. He blinked several times, a frown lighting his face. 

There was a snap and then a white square was shoved into his field of vision. 

A tissue?

What the fuck? 

He wasn’t crying, but as he looked up at the arm holding the square he felt the wetness at the neck of his muscle shirt. 

Fuck had he been crying. 

Vishous son of the Bloodletter, demigod of the vampire race, did not cry. 

Wrath towered over him, for once his aggression banked, holding a dainty tissue in his hand. Vishous stared at it, not wanting to admit to his weakness. He reached up, stalled out, leaving his hand to dangle between admitting his weakness and shaking it off. 

“Take it motherfucker.” Wrath growled. 

V snatched it from his hand and lobbed a fuck off as the king chuckled softly. He mopped up his face without dislodging either of the twins from their sleep or his arms. He found it difficult to let them go just yet and they curled into him.

The phone jangled. Jane snatched it then spoke softly to Wrath who answered back in equally lowered tones. Any other time V would have gotten pissed at being treated like a kid, but he didn’t care at the moment. “Fritz made their rooms up on the third floor. Across from Rhage and Mary.” Wrath offered once he was done with his Jane powwow. 

V nodded. 

Good, they would be close to Mary if they needed her. Mary was the one to help them through all this emotional shit. She was good like that. She was tight in the head at all times. No cracks in her psyche, no parental bullshit bleeding through and staining everything around her. His intellect would not be the savior in this case. 

There was a soft knock at the door. Jane reached over and turned the knob. 

A wave of Chanel No 5 washed over everything as iAm and his mate, queen of the Shadows, Maichen, stepped into the room. iAm was decked out in the BDB standard wardrobe, black leather from head to toe and dripping with weapons. The male always went for overkill when he was with his mate. Not that any other male would have been any different when out in the human world with his female. Two forties, and length of chain were SOP. V had to admit the male was sexy as fuck. Maichen was draped in ropes of rubies and diamonds, swathed in her gown of creamy white; one of those one-shoulder affairs that pooled at her feet, even in her heels. V had never seen the appeal of Marissa, and now that he had seen Maichen, Marissa was a well dressed #2 pencil as far as he was concerned. He would never express this to Butch or iAm. Maichen in a word, she was a vision. 

iAm dark eyes swept the room, looking for any sign of danger that needed stabbing and eating. After his assessment he nodded a greeting to everyone in their turn. 

Maichen simply acknowledged everyone with a small smile, the tips of her fangs showing over her top lip, and a slight bob of her head. For the king she offered a well-executed deep curtsey. The King couldn’t see it of course but V knew the brother was aware of it. 

Wrath pulled the queen upright and bent to kiss her knuckles softly. 

iAm massaged the butt of his forty as he watched. 

Wrath chuckled as he caught the male’s bonding scent warring with the Chanel in the air. 

“Peace my love. The King is being gracious.” She murmured to her male, a slight smile in her voice. The King flashed his fangs at iAm but stepped back from the Shadow Queen. Not even V would willingly step to the shadow in an even fight. “I have news Vishous son of the Scribe Virgin.” The queen announced without preamble. Maichen would never acknowledge the Bloodletter. Shadows traced linage through the mother. The Shadows were a matriarchy society. Females ruled the roost. Their males were just decorative and deadly should the situation called for it. 

“Forgive me for not standing.” He would’ve stood but he didn’t want to wake his twins.

She dismissed his concern with a lazy wave of her hand. “Do not put yourself out on my account. I see how you interact with your king I would not ask for anything more than you give you own monarch.” iAm’s chest swelled, and with that she seated herself right down on the floor next to him, in her spotless white gown, with all her priceless jewels twinkling under the harsh florescent lights of the clinic like it was the most natural thing in the world for a queen to do. V had to turn his head and blink again. “I’ve had our family histories scoured to look for their people.” She offered him a small smile. “It seems we are family.”

His eyes snapped to hers, then he looked up at iAm, then back to Maichen. “What just happened?”

“Aja, her human name by the way, was the youngest daughter to my uncle. When she left the Territory her name was burned from the family tree, her quarters ritualistically cleansed and all traces of her erased.” Her voice caught. “But her birth chart was still in the royal collection.” With a gentle hand she reached out and smoothed Logan’s hair back from her face. “I will not presume that they will want to live in the Territory, life is rather restrictive still, but as members of the royal family they are welcome to come and go as they please. They have other family members on their grandfather’s side still on this side of the Fade, and we shall be happy to attend them during the transition.”

Vishous gave her a hard look. “They are my young. I will take care of their transition.” 

“Shadows do not transition as vampires do. They might need our help.” Maichen frowned at him.

“I can take care of it.” V bit out. iAm got up from his chair and fixed Vishous with a ‘chill motherfucker’ glare. 

“That is a gracious offer your grace we would be happy to take you up on it.” Zypher’s voice called from the other side of the room. He might be a bastard but his mother imparted to him perfect, gentlemanly manners. Everyone’s head whipped around at the sound of his voice. V had forgotten he was there. 

“You don’t get a say asshole.” V snapped. 

“They’re mine, the hell I don’t.” Zy countered rising from the bed, a growl percolating in his throat. 

V bared his fangs, hissing like a python. iAm unsnapped his gun holster. 

Maichen held up her hand and both combatants quieted. She flowed to her feet in one swift motion. She clasped her hands in front of her body and favored both Vishous and Zypher with a smile meant for errant children caught with their hands in the cookie jar. With her mate at her side it was a pointed warning. 

“I am sorry but these two are my cousins. They are part shadow and they are members of the royal family. My family, and while I do not wish to insist on anything, I will if it means they live through the change. Their transition could be more than this clinic is capable of handling, and that is not to besmirch the good Doc Jane, but she has not assisted in a shadow transitioning.” She paused, her eyes hardening. “And more to the point my gentlemales, neither of you have a say in how their lives are to unfold. So this what shall happen, when they wake up, we shall present them with the facts and seek their counsel and answers on the matter. After that we shall make plans.” She paused, waiting for them to speak. 

“I don’t mean to be rude your grace.” V started to say. 

“Then don’t asshole.” Wrath offered V casually. 

V swallowed back the angry words he wanted to lob at the queen, then he counted to ten several times in his head. If he mouthed off right now he could count on two things happening, iAm would give him a new breathing hole somewhere south of his nose, and second, Wrath and company would sit back and watch him do it.   
He ran through several combat scenarios, and dismissed them all. He might overpower iAm, he had never seen the male fight, but there was no way Wrath and Zyper were going to let him do it, and worse Jane might stab him. 

“Thank you.” He said on a whoosh of breath. 

FUCCCCCKKKKKKK. GODDAMNIT, SHIT, MOTHERFUCKER! 

Maichen smiled down at him. “Think nothing of it. iAm and myself shall be at our private cabin for a few days.” Her male’s bonding scent flared to life. Maichen blushed, and then cleared her throat. “You can reach me on his cellular device when its time to speak to your daughters.” With that the Shadow Queen and her consort flowed out of the room, leaving a faint sweet scent behind. 

“Now you know why they say women are the deadlier of the species.” Jane added.


	6. Chapter 6

Trez whimpered in the darkness as he tried to rollover onto his back. He didn’t know what time it was. He nearly wept when the shutters over his windows rolled down for the day. They had a whisper setting, but even that soft sound was enough send pinpricks of pain shooting through his brain. His migraine was still tearing through his grey matter with a pissed off vengeance with no end in sight. Thank every deity in the phonebook that the house was quiet. 

It wasn’t possible for a house with nearly 100 people to be quiet at any hour of the day or night, and he never expected them to be, but it was nice when the miracle did happen. His migraines were becoming more frequent and he feared it was a signal to something more sinister going on in his body. He could count on one a month if he were really stressed, but now he was looking at one a week and that was fucking unacceptable. 

He rolled over and retched into the industrial bucket Fritz was so kind to keep on hand when the migraine dragon struck. At this point he was spewing for both accuracy and distance. He didn’t know what else he had in his stomach to throw up but his esophagus kept rising to the occasion. He shivered and gently pulled his covers back up to his chin. His body was on fire, but the room was as cold as a damn meat locker.

At least the kaleidoscope or neon colors had stopped. He might still be in the clutches of his beast, but he was coming down on the other side of it. He figured he had maybe 8 more hours before the world was right again. His mouth felt foul and grainy. He would chew his own arm off for some toothpaste and brush action. Maybe someone would take mercy on him and douse him in Listerine. 

There was a soft knock at the door but it might as well have been the Hulk trying to get through. The pain of the sound tunneled into his frontal lobe and he retched again. 

“Come in,” he rasped, hoping it was a Walker sent from the Fade to escort him from his mortal chains. There was a stripe of light across his torso; the faint trace of Turkish tobacco dispelled that hope. 

“Shit I thought you would be on the mend by now.” V said softly as he shut out the light of the hallway quickly. 

Trez sank down into the pillow cushions, his condition was written all over his face, and besides he was just too tired to talk to V right now. 

“I just wanted to thank you for bringing them home.”

Trez frowned, then instantly regretted the movement. “Who?”

V planted his big frame in one of the powdered yellow rococo club chairs by the shuttered windows. “My twins. The girls you dropped out of the sky with. They are mine.”

Everything slowly came back to Trez, for which he was thankful. He nodded slowly. “Hard to miss the family resemblance, true.” He threw out V’s favorite word. Funny enough it had multiple meanings that Trez found fit a multitude of situations. “They must take after their mother though.” V and Payne weren’t fugly or anything. Payne had that ball crusher sort of vibe, he would love to see her and Xhex go hand to hand, and he wasn’t alone in that, but the females stayed away from each other in the sparring ring. And V did have that serial killer appeal going for him, but him and his sister were all corded muscles and hard lines. V’s twins were dark, dainty and soft. Little wisps of women. He didn’t think they would come up to his waist if they were all on the vertical. 

“I guess the force is strong in my family.”

“So does that make your mother or your father Darth Vader?” Trez’s fangs flashed in the darkness. 

V chuckled, flicking his gold lighter open and closed. “My father would have had Vader’s nuts on a keychain, and he would have thanked him for the pleasure.” Trez laughed, then cry out in pain as the motherfucker of pain spikes stabbed through his head. 

Vishous was at his side in a flash. “Shit Trez.” His ungloved hand went to the male’s forehead and came away slick. “Fuck Trez how are you still breathing?” He pushed back the duvet from Trez’s body. It came away drenched in sweat. “Damnit Trez.” He peeled away the soaking thing, tossing it to the floor. Trez was still in his suit, which he hadn’t known. In its current state the expensive weat rag was sticking to him like superglue. Vishous grabbed the male by his midsection and hoisted him from the bed. “We have to get you out of these wet clothes and clean. You’ve got a fucking fever, and I’ve got too much other shit to deal with without your brother razing the whole goddamn house because we let you die. Come on.” The Brother dead lifted Trez, there was no way he was in any condition to help, and bodied him into the bathroom. Thank the Virgin Scribe he didn’t turn on the lights. He got the shower going, checking the water temperature and pressure every few seconds. “Can you get in there on your own?”

“No.” Trez croaked. 

“Well shit. Do you want me to get Ehlena?” The female would do it and think nothing of it, but that male of her’s might have a conniption fit if he knew his mate had seen one of his best friends naked as a jaybird. 

“Fuck V just get in with me. I don’t fucking care.” And again he threw up in the floor, Vishous barely caught him before his face planted in his own sick. He pulled a dagger from his chest holster and sliced through Trez $4,000 suit like it was lesser skin.

“Butch helped me pick that out.” Trez whined softly.  
“Well you can let him pick out another one for you. He lives for that shit.” The Brother grunted and only took a few moments to get himself naked. The fucking leather pants all the brothers favored didn’t leave room for underwear. 

“You have to tell him what happened to it.” He chuckled as Vishous visibly paled. 

V finally nodded. “Asshole.” Trez didn’t mean to look as he was pushed under the spray, it was just a struggle to keep his head leveled, and he just happened to glance down, but Vishous had a magnificent body. The male was encased in cords of muscle, and tight hairless skin. Trez never understood that about vampires. The hairless thing, yes it was sexy on Selene but he didn’t mind it on the humans he had been with. He actually liked a nice bush. It was erotic as fuck. His eyes didn’t linger on the partial castration, but his blood heated as he thought of V’s father ordering the deed done. If Payne hadn’t killed her sire Trez would have volunteered for the job. He knew what a mind fuck parents could do on you, but trying to castrate your son was just beyond the pail. He didn’t fault V for a fucking he did in his life. His parents won the gold medal in ‘How to fuck up your Kid and influence people’ category. 

V stepped into the shower stall and closed the door. 

Trez shivered as the water sluiced down his frame, the sensation leaving goose pimples down his entire body. It felt so fucking good he wanted to cry, but he kept it tight. Vishous was already getting an eyeful of his naked ass; he didn’t need to see him crying. He threw his hand out to steady himself. 

“Shit.” V caught him around the middle pulling his close steading Trez with his own body. “Thanks.” He muttered. Trez turned his face into the gentle spray. V was quick with the soap and cloth routine, careful not to give his junk more than one quick pass while managing to get his privates squeaky clean in the process. 

Trez of course knew about V’s proclivities. Shit everyone in the house did. Rhage and Butch were the biggest gossips and loved nothing more than being the clearinghouse of information for anyone who could put up with their shit for more than 10 minutes. Though to be fair Trez had had a few of Vishous’s conquests. He wasn’t usually into vampires, but some females were worth it. V had great taste though if he believed everything Rhage told him V didn’t know what any of them looked like. He kept them masked, mores the pity. Trez had to admit he could see the appeal of bdsm. The power byplay between people in life was fascinating. The things people did to get a small measure of power, hell he worked with Rhev long enough to thwart a few attempts on the male’s life. He knew people killed for power. He could only imagine the power play during sex. Especially with V, apparently he nearly caused the collapse of the dungeon crowd in New York when he took a shellan. 

For a moment, just a single moment he forgot where he was and leaned himself back against V’s chest; aware of the male’s heartbeat skipping several beats, but V continued to gently massage shampoo into his short hair. It was a soothing gesture that only iAm had ever had the patience to do for Trez.

He still missed Selene like a raging fire consuming everything in its path, but it was nice to just be held. Everyone in the house still tiptoed on eggshells around him. It was sort of nice that they knew he was still mourning and not pressuring him to move on, but it also kept everyone at bay. They all still had their mates, their young, they were happy and so fucking grateful that it wasn’t them howling at the moon as they watched their mate turn to ash. Not that Trez was a chatty Cathy sitting in the theater gabbing it up with Lassiter or going shoe shopping with Phury, Butch and Saxton. He’d done that once. After the eighth hour and an importuned trip to Paris he was ready to stab all of them in the left eye and gnaw on their soft tissue. 

Vishous was a cold, calculating Brother. He analyzed you like you were a piece of hardware and when he wanted something from you he wanted something from you, and when he didn’t he didn’t bother with you. 

Right now he was Trez’s anchor. The one person in the house he didn’t want anything from him. He didn’t want reassurances that Trez was still tight in the head, he didn’t want to see Trez for First Meal or Last Meal, and he didn’t want the payroll or liquor order. He didn’t want him to rough up a john who got too hands on with one of his girls. He didn’t want promises that Trez would stay on this side of the Fade. 

Trez wasn’t sure if it was just a general lack of empathy on Vishous’ part or if the Brother just didn’t know how to care. 

The water shut off. Trez’s eyes blinked open. The bathroom was doused in a heavy and warm fog. V carefully maneuvered both of them out of the shower without either of them ending up ass over teakettle. 

He deposited Trez on the lip of the tub and fetched a thick towel. “Can you manage this without passing out or throwing up?” He asked, his voice thick with something Trez couldn’t place. 

“I should say yes right?” Trez asked. 

Vishous shrugged, his shoulders rolling around on oiled joints. “Why?”

“Because we just got out of a shower that we took together and you toweling me off might just be crossing a line or some shit.” The heat was making his head pound with every beat of his heart. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could stay vertical. 

V flashed him some fang. They were punching down over his bottom lip now, his tips gleaming through the fog. “Think I can’t kept this all clinical?” The tattoo warning at his temple starting to glow. “Been listening to Rhage have you?” The Brother folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the shower. 

Trez tried to keep his eyes off the vampire’s private area, but it was hard with him leaning against the shower and Trez right at cock height sitting on the edge of the tub. Later he would wonder what the fuck he was thinking about when he opened his mouth to answer V’s question. 

“How do you know I’m worried out you?” He said before his brain was done processing what he wanted his mouth to say. 

The smile vanished from Vishous’ face, the fog charging with something Trez could definitely place. 

“Careful shadow. You know what they say when you dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.”


	7. Chapter 7

Zy sat at the edge of his bed, his body on fire as ants marched one by one under his skin. 

Goddamnit. 

He jogged his right leg for five minutes, and then jogged his left leg for ten minutes. Ok, that wasn’t working. He got up and paced around his room for nearly an hour then sat back down. 

He sat for two minutes then got up and rearranged his socks by color, which wasn’t hard as they were all white. Next up were his wife beaters; these came in a variety of fun colors, black and white. He pulled out his guns two .40s, a .38 and a Glock 17. Disassembling, cleaning and then putting his guns back together took a grand total of twenty minutes. 

Fuck.

He prowled around his room like a caged lion. He wanted to get out of the house, he needed to get out of the house or he was going to do something he might regret. He looked at the shutters still covering the windows. He could go to the gym and break a few more treadmills, but Doc Jane told him to cut it with the slab of meat routine. They only had so many treadmills to spare. 

“Fucking burning ball of death.” He growled. He rubbed at the spot over his chest. He needed out of this house he needed space he wanted a hug. Shit he didn’t know what he wanted, everything was swirling. Crashing together, knocking things out of whack, leaving a trail of destruction and debris behind. 

Goddamn sun! “Fuck.” He roared. There was a yelp and something dropped outside of his door. Oh fucking great now he was scaring people in the house. There was a reason the bastards stayed away from the fellows and other flesh bags. They were hardly housebroken and subject to random acts of violence and screaming outbursts. He wanted to go apologize to whomever he had terrorized, but he just didn’t have the energy to be sociable at the moment. 

He didn’t have a watch or a phone and there wasn’t a clock in his room. He didn’t know how much longer he had to be trapped in this fucking house. As much as he wanted to leave, as much as he needed to run till the Earth gave out he could feel them upstairs. He could smell them through the walls. His twins, his pixies, he wanted to go to them this instant. He wanted to bath in the blood of he humans who hurt them and spike their severed heads at the city limits as a warning. He wanted to feel both of them under him as he kissed down their bodies. He wanted a lifetime of nights with them tucked around his body. He wanted it all and he wanted it right now, but it was too much. He was too much. 

Almost 175 years of stalking the nights alone to run headfirst in his destiny in the hospital room of the Blind King. He chuckled. Of all the ways he thought his life would go, he wouldn’t have ever pictured finding his female. Well females. Both of them were his. They were two separate female, but he saw the same spark of life in their eyes. Oh what a marvellous female their mahmen must have been. 

He wanted to put his boot up Vishous ass for leaving her when she needed him the most. What sort of male just walked out on the female carrying his young? How could he abandon them like that? He jumped up from his bed looking for something to destroy. Young were precious were blessings! And his females had ended up kin the hands of human sadists! He grabbed a vase from the bureau looking to throw it against the wall but he checked his anger and set it back down. It wasn’t his place to smash something that didn’t belong to him; especially not in the King’s home. Not after the grace he’d granted them. Hid band of bastards had tried to kill him, dethrone him and publicly shame his shellen. 

A lesser vampire would still be wading through their viscera. 

His knuckles cracked as his hands cranked into fists. 

Winter and Logan. 

His Logan, so fiery and fervent, almost too hot to handle. His blood began to roll as imagined the ways he wanted to keep her body warm. His Winter, as cool as her namesake season, calculating and exacting. He could think of all the ways in which he would enjoy her taking her time. 

There was a knock at his door. “Leave me be.” He was on his feet the instant the handle started to turn. He palmed a knife as Xcor stepped into the room with Lyric gurgling in his arms. 

“Are we afraid of young now?” His leader asked, his harelip pulling his semblance of a smile into a facsimile of mirth. 

“Forgive me.” He dropped the knife on the bed. “I’m just a little out of sorts.”

“That is not saying much.” Xcor sat down on the little bench at the foot of Zy’s bed. “Qhuinn says there are two new additions to the house. Said they were quite stunning in fact. I didn’t believe he had the capacity to look at a female in that way.” He switched Lyric to his other arm and the young giggled. 

Zypher’s bonding scent poured out of his skin in a mad rush of heat that rocked him back on his feet. He bared his fangs at Xcor. He would not mangle him while he was holding his young but he would tear him into tiny pieces and drop them down a drainpipe. Xcor gave him a single raised eyebrow and a very knowing smile. 

“I seem to recall the fun you had at my expense over Layla. I believe this is what the humans call a tit for a tat.” The vampire could be downright evil when he really put his mind to it. 

“Was is like this?” Zy sat in the chair at his window.

Xcor began to gently rock Lyric. “You know the moment you see her eyes for the first time. The first time you catch her scent.

“That fast?”

“The knowing yes, the admitting not so much. We are males, and from what I’ve come to know we are very stupid.” He smiled again. 

“But they are mine.”

“They?” Lyric yawned. 

Zy blushed. “They are twins. Logan and Winter. Both of them are mine.”

Xcor blinked at Zypher. “Twins? Both of them?”

“Yes both of them.”

“Two females.” Xcor asked just to be clear. You had to be clear about these things. 

Zy threw his hands up. “Yes two of them. It has been done before.”

“Yes in the Old Country, centuries ago and it was never sisters, and never twins. The practice is not done here. You canne take both of them Zypher.” Lyric blinked several times and relaxed into sleep. 

“They are mine and I will have them.” Zy bared his fangs. 

The former leader of the band of bastards sighed. “That is the bond in you talking. They have to choose you too, and from what I hear they are part Shadow and members of the royal family. If you try to dominate them you will bring about pain so unimaginable your mother will weep in the Fade when she gazes upon you.” And that was if the Shadows were feeling charitable. 

“They will choose me.” Why was this a question? His twins would choose him. There was nothing to it. They were his and that was the start and end of it. 

Xcor chuckled. “Why, because you are the best vampire with an edged weapon? Or is it because you look so good in leather?” 

Zypher deflated. “You think I am not male enough for them?”

“It is not what I think that matters. Females are not like us. It doesn’t happen in a single moment for them. They do not bond like we do, and your twins have grown up in the human world. They know nothing of us. You have to earn them Zy. You have to be worthy of them and prove that to them.”

“Well how do I do that?” He just full of all the helpful advice today wasn’t he?

“Ahh, well I am exactly the wrong person to ask that. I am as romantic as a sewage drain.” Lyric gurgled and one of her adoptive father’s smiled.


	8. Chapter 8

Jane sat at her desk, the computer tower churning and whirling away, a half eaten turkey sandwich sitting forgotten at the corner on the Spartan piece of furniture. Fritz wanted to give her some fancy French desk that survived the French Revolution, but she wouldn’t have it. Nothing that ever came out of France screamed efficient and minimal. She didn’t mind being in the main house for parties and food, but it was too much. Too many colors, fabrics, patterns, people. It was a sensory onslaught. She loved the Pit. A couch, a foos table, bottle of Lag and cigarette butts oh my, what more did you need in life?

She started in her chair. It had been nearly two months since she had even been back to the Pit. Two months since she had slept in her own bed, had sex with her husband. Fuck how long had it been since her and V had been alone long enough to have a conversation? She couldn’t remember the last conversation they had had. 

Did she care that she hadn’t talked to her husband in over two months? Jane blinked. Did she just ask herself that? What the hell was wrong with her? What wife didn’t care if they talked their mate? What wife didn’t care that she hadn’t had sex with her mate in two months? 

What the hell had been more important than her mate?

‘Everything’, the nasty bitch inside her head whispered. 

Jane shook her head and slammed her hand on her desk. “Shut up.”

‘Why?’ The bitch asked. ‘Because you don’t like hearing the truth all of a sudden?’

Jane clapped her hands over her ears. “Just shut the hell up.”

‘Come on Jane you know that never works.’ The bitch chuckled. 

“Just leave me alone. I want to be alone, can you fucking do that for me?” The doctor begged. 

The bitch laughed again, her form finally coming into focus in Jane’s grey matter. Frankie Calhoun. Why did the nasty bitch have to look like Frankie Calhoun, the girl who beat Jane out in the running for chief resident during their fifth year of surgical residency. It would have been easy to hate Frankie. She was a knockout. Hourglass figure, heart shaped face, unblemished pecan colored skin, and piercing brown eyes that conveyed fierce determination and empathy depending on the situation. It would have been easy if Frankie had been a shark. Willing to devour any intern, resident or attending that got in her way of surgical glory, but she was a doll. The girl was bubbly, sweet, always going the extra mile and the hands of God himself when she held a scalpel. 

Jane hated her on principle, but it was her own private hate. She couldn’t tell anyone, everyone fucking worshipped Frankie, and she never lorded it over anyone or used it to her advantage. The girl was oblivious to her effect on people. She had no idea that every man would have given his mother’s right lung for a change to see her Hello Kitty panties (Jane snuck a peek in the locker room) and the other female residents wanted to be her. Suffice to say to voice her hatred would have drawn the ire of everyone in her program and might have alienated her colleagues before she ever started. 

Phantom Frankie wrapped her ample behind around a bar stool and looked directly at Jane. A soft pink cosmopolitan appeared in her hand. She took a dainty sip before speaking. ‘I’ve missed these little chats of ours Jane. I mean we never really got a chance to talk before my fellowship at Mayo. Where was it you did yours again?’ Frankie chuckled. 

“Fuck you bitch.” Jane growled.

‘I doubt your father raised you to be so vulgar.’ Frankie continued to sip at her drink. ‘What were we talking about? Oh yes that delicious mate of yours. What sort of woman could be married to a male like that and prefer the company of her scalpels and the OR over him? I mean now long has it been since you’ve even kissed him properly?’

“It hasn’t been that long.” Jane tried to count the months. 

‘I believe the pools were still open and we are in the middle of a snowstorm.’

“Me and V aren’t like that. I’m not Mary or Beth or Bella. I don’t need my mate up under me every second of the damn day. I actually have a job. Vishous has a job.” She didn’t dismiss Beth or Bella as unimportant or anything its just that they didn’t actually do anything other than look pretty and pop out babies. Yes Beth was the vampire queen and she did help Wrath but now Wrath had his aide and Saxton and Beth was happy as a pig in mud to resort to just being a mom. Bella never had anything to do. She planned the occasional ceremony in honor of the Scribe Virgin, but since the deity was gone who were the ceremonies for?

‘Mary has a job. Marissa has a job too. They save lives, they keep people safe.’

“They run a goddamn shelter. I had my hands in Layla’s abdomen and I helped deliver her twins. Torh would have lost his leg if it weren’t for Manny and me. None of the Brothers would still be alive if it weren’t for me. I don’t have time to stop and fuck my husband whenever he needs it.”

‘But when’s the last time he asked.’ Frankie’s sly grin was the ultimate mind fuck. 

That question stopped Jane up short. 

Vishous was not the sort of male to curb his appetites. When they first met it was nothing to have V came into her office push aside her lab coat and plow into her like a newly oiled piston. She loved it, craved it even. She felt curiously empty when he wasn’t thrusting into her. But lately Vishous had been just as closed off to her as she had been to him. 

She didn’t even know where he had been sleeping. Well he could have been going back to the Pit and crashing there, but he once told her he didn’t like sleeping in their sheets without her. Maybe he was sleeping down in his forge, or maybe in the main house. Well no, he doesn’t like being that far from Butch. Was he getting his rocks off with Butch? 

Hmm, that was a curious question. There was definitely something between the two of them, and it had been there long before she came into the picture. It was something that went to the marrow for them. There was nothing she would begrudge between her mate and Butch. She and Marissa talked through every scenario they could think of the pair of their mates getting into. Neither of them had seemed hurt about it. 

Some relationships transcended rules and mores. 

Holy fuck what was she doing? She curled into herself at her chair and just lost herself in oblivion. 

Time slide by, without looking at the clock it was hard to tell what time it was. There weren’t any windows down in the clinic and she was disinclined to hunt for a clock. She simply didn’t give a flying fuck. 

She stared at a point on the wall just to the left of her medical degree. Phury snagged it for her whenever she did her disappearing act from the human world. It was just like Phury to remember something so small and to go out of his way for someone else. He was such a male of worth. 

She slid back into lethargy. A few times Assail’s screams punctuated the silence, and still nothing of note was passing through her mind at the moment. 

Jane sat suspended in time. She knew she should be thinking about something. Thinking about her mate, his full grown, about to transition children. Thinking about the horrible life they had in the human foster care system. And she should really be thinking about her flaying sex and mated life. But nothing was landing. 

“Jane.” 

Her name shot directly into her frontal lobe. Jane squeaked and toppled right out of her chair into the floor in response. A pair of strong arms scooped her up without effort and set her back into her chair before her brain even registered the fall, and the minor pain in her butt. 

If she were a ghost why did she still feel pain? 

“Are you ok?”

She blinked, clearing the fog in her brain. Xhex stood in front of her, arms folded as she peered down at Jane. “What? Wait, huh?” Jane stuttered. 

“Shit Jane I was calling your name for fine minutes. What’s wrong?” The muscular female stared hard at Jane. 

The doctor shook her head, she was not ready for a heart to heart right now, she so wasn’t. Her brain felt like a full bag of marbles. “I’m fine.” Jane reached from the pen on her desk. There had to be a chart she could update. She was sure she had missed First Meal and possibly Last Meal. 

“The hell you are. Do I need to get Manny?” Xhex wasn’t fooled for a fucking minute. Jane’s grid was misfiring and glitching like a 1996 Gateway desktop computer. 

“No I’m alright.”

“You sure. I’ve seen oatmeal that looks livelier…” Xhex started to say. 

Jane slammed her hand down on top of her desk. Her en jumped off the end and dived into her wastebasket. “I said I’m fucking fine. Leave me alone.” With anyone else they would have taken the hint and beat a hasty retreat, but the half sympathy, half vampire assassin had been threatened by better than the likes of Jane Whitcomb. She popped her hands on her hips and glared at the doctor. A single blonde eyebrow soared up into her hairline.

“I’m going to forgive that little tantrum on account of the fact that you just had a ball crusher of a day but don’t make a fucking habit out of that.” She turned and made for the door, but has her hand hovered over the handle she turned to look back at Jane. “You might want to look at how well the avoidance thing is working for you and V before you tell the next person to fuck off.” She didn’t slam the door as she left, but the soft click stabbed at Jane’s heart just the same. 

“Fuck.” Jane burst into tears.


	9. Chapter 9

Zypher left his leader and his young sitting in his bedroom. Xcor was cooing and singing to the sleeping babe and Zypher wasn’t sure he could take anymore of Xcor’s warbling. The male had the musical talent of granite, and poor Lyric wasn’t cute enough to cover for her father’s poor singing. He closed the door softly. 

Ha ambled downstairs hunting for a distraction. In a house this large with this many people there should be something to occupy his mind. Everyone was in residence and for one no one was on the mend. Well except for the Shadow club owner, but Zypher never encountered him. 

He needed something to keep him from hunting down his mates. He wasn’t sure what Xcor meant by earning them, but he figured that didn’t start by bursting into their room and scaring the ever-loving shit out of them. He knew that would not be a great first move. 

The doggen were bustling about cleaning this room or another and setting the dining room for First Meal. Zy’s stomach grumbled in response. He didn’t eat before he left last night to go have sex with the whore. So he was going to tuck into a nice platter of blintzes and sausages. He wasn’t sure which doggen made those heavenly things but if he ever found out hey were getting a very special Winter Solstice gift from him. 

Several vacuum cleaners were whizzing away around the house. The doggen loved the damned things. Zypher was not overly fond of anything that plugged into a socket and made such a racket. It was unnatural. The tangy smell of lemon cleanser tickled his nose. 

For all the things that he had been given since being in the King’s house he still missed the old ways in the Old Country. He missed the stout; slab sized stonewalls of their purloined castle. He missed waking up with the smell of the earth in his nostrils. He missed having dirt under his fingernails. He found himself sighing; he missed a lot. 

The crack of pool balls pulled him from his daydream and the dark hole he was on the brink of tumbling down. He pivoted on his heels and headed into the game room. Butch and Blay leaned against their pool cues as Beth leaned over the pool table to take a shot. Her brother looked on with a knowing smirk on his silent lips. Bitty was in her favorite chair in the room holding onto to LW while Nalla danced around the chair like a wild savage to a tune only the young could hear. LW giggled at her antics, and made frenzied grabs for the toddler. Bitty held onto the young with her thin little arms. 

Lassiter and Syn occupied the couch in front of the TV. Though the TV was blaring in the background neither of them paid any attention to it. They sat facing each other, Lassiter with a black t-shirt with the KISS tongue done up in pink glitter, Syn in a simple Hanes t-shirt in white. Neither of them spoke. Whatever was going on between the two of them Zypher wanted no part of it. Syn was his brother and he would lay down his life for him in an instant, but that didn’t mean he wanted to get all up in the male’s grey matter. The male had earned his namesake good and proper, nothing would come of him trying to get in the middle of the saint and sinner showdown. 

There were some dark holes you didn’t want to crawl down, and if the gossip from Vishous was to be believed Lassiter might be an angle but there was a reason his light brite ass wasn’t with the Creator. The angel had his own dark hole of regret. 

“And that is game gentlemales. Pay up.” The Queen of Vampires taunted. She smirked as Blay and Butch slapped a few hundred-dollar bills into her hands. 

“You know its wrong to steal from the poor.” Butch groused as Beth grinned and fanned herself with their money. 

“Its not stealing if you just suck at pool.” Beth turned her money to fan the losers with their own lost bills. “Besides me kicking your ass at pool keeps you humble.”

Butch looked hurt. “Hey. I’m humble as fuck.” Everyone’s head snapped around and gave him the hairy eyeball. “Oh shit. Crap. I’m sorry.” The Brother turned bright red and slapped his hand over his mouth. 

“Shit.” Nalla cried with a mad giggle. Everyone whirled around to stare at the toddler. She danced another jig, spiked her teddy bear on the carpet with a war cry of glee. Now this was going to get someone into trouble. 

“Now look what you did.” Blay smiled. Nalla clapped and repeated her new word over and over again, seeming to like the mouth feel of the word. “How fast can you run?” 

Butch eyed him. “Why?”

“Well you just taught Nalla a very naughty word, and her father is not the forgiving type.” The redhead reset the pool table calmly. 

“Z wouldn’t hurt me. I’m a Brother.” Butch didn’t look very convinced as he spoke. 

“Yeah but Bella can still kick your ass.” Beth smiled. 

“You just said ass.” The Brother cried. 

“I’m the queen.” Beth hip checked Butch playfully. “I’m allowed certain concessions.” She scooped up her son out of Bitty’s arms and tickled his belly. The babe giggled as he withered his mahmen’s arms. “Good luck with Bella.” She called as she danced out of the game room. 

“Good luck with what?” The aforementioned mahmen breezed into the game room with a sheath of papers clutched in her arms. 

“I’m out.” Blay nearly set the wood floors and his best friend John Matthew on fire in his haste. The mute warrior was right on his tail. 

“What’s going on?” She looked from Bitty and Nalla to Butch and Zy. 

“Shit mahmen, shit.” Nalla explained calmly. 

Zypher managed to extract himself before the claws came out. A chuckled rumbled in his chest as Bella started screeching at Butch. 

~~X~~

Vishous didn’t know why the fuck he said that, but it was too late to take it back. They had probably kissed ‘appropriate housemate behavior’ goodbye before their naked shower. 

“I thought you were a demigod.” Trez smirked, his migraine momentarily fading to the background. 

“I can be both sinner and saint depending on the situation.” Vishous let his arms hang loose at his side, watching Trez as Trez watched him. He wondered if Trez had ever been with a male before. Certainly he had been with humans. His sexual resume was as long as and as prolific as Rhage’s had been. 

V’s chest pumped in and out, hard, the thickened air flowing down into his lungs, cleansing just a little bit of his nastiness away. It felt good, this felt good. He was feeling something. That was good right?

Right?

Across the tile, he could feel every beat of Trez’s heart. The Double thunk, thunk set his own pulse racing and his fangs ran out. The sweet stinging got him hard as an iron bar. He felt that familiar ache in his balls and damn him but he wanted to feel Trez up against his chest and his held onto his throat with his gloved hand. He didn’t give a flying fuck if the Shadow was still 8 hours away from being on the mend. He wanted in him and he wanted in him bad. 

He knew exactly when Trez realized what was happening. 

Trez’s eyes went luminous in the dissipating fog, his own fangs running out. Holy shit. Holy, fuck my mother was the Scribe Virgin, shit. V wasn’t about to be shot for coming on to Trez, and Trez wasn’t running away either. Well in his condition he wouldn’t get very far, but if he wanted to he would have given it the ole college try. 

Never, ever had V ever come on to any of his Brothers, not because he wasn’t tempted mind you. He had seen Phury naked enough to appreciated that the male was a thing of beauty, and even Rhage had turned his eye. Well before he opened his mouth and made you want to ram your fist down his throat. Butch was as far as he ever tried with another male that he wasn’t dominating. 

But this right here, this was virgin territory. So to speak. 

Neither of them moved. 

V had no idea if Trez wanted what V would love to give him, but Vishous was enough of a bastard to take advantage of the shadow in his weakened state. Yes he knew Trez was still in mourning, but he was still sitting at the edge of that tub, looking at V like he wanted to devour him starting with his cock and V was more than willing to oblige him. 

But was he enough of a bastard to cheat on Jane? 

This would be crossing a line, a very defined line in the sand. It was one thing to not have had sex with his shellen in weeks and not really care, but it was another to fuck another member of the same household; a member of the house that she would run into over and over again. V had been dancing around the shit for so long he was tired of it and just wanted to give in, but did Jane deserve that?

Being honest with himself, he new the answer was no. Jane didn’t do anything to deserve this. She had been as good of a mate as she was capable of being to male like him. He slumped back against the counter. He couldn’t do this to her. 

“We both want this.” Trez finally spoke, his voice thick. “But when it happens, it has to be right.” He grabbed the towel from Vishous’ numb hands. “For both of us.” He struggled to his feet, using the glass wall of the shower for support. “Go find your female and try to fix it.” With effort he shooed V from the bathroom even though the Brother could see he was struggling. “And go find your young and fix that too. I’ll be here.” He ran the towel over his frame getting most of the water off but not all. He slumped face down on the bed and groaned. 

Vishous threw the duvet from the bed and pulled the sheet up the shadow’s naked ass, up his back and to his shoulders. “I’ll send someone up with some Cokes and cookies.”

He heard the muffled thank you as he closed the door softly.


	10. Chapter 10

Now Jane felt like shit but she wasn’t sure how to fix it. She knew something was off with her and V but she was fucked if she knew what it was or how to fix it. Vishous had been her first and only serious relationship, and then she’d gone and died and his mother brought her back from the door of the Fade. She didn’t even know if one could walk away from something like that. 

Her and V just weren’t working and with a sinking heart she knew that V had figured that out long before she did. 

“Fuck!” With an angry swipe she sent everything on her desk crashing into the wall. Her turkey sandwich made a particularly pleasing pattern of tomato and mayo as it slid to a wet stop on the floor. 

She had to get out of here. She needed air; the walls were starting to close in. The panic rose up from her belly, climbing into her throat, threatening to drown her. Falling into autopilot she snatched her keys from the drawer, grabbed her purse and raced out of her office. 

Down the sterile hallway and around the corner, she was almost at the door. She cut left, barely managing to dodge around a doggen with a mop heading toward the pool. 

“Sorry mistress.” The doggen cried. Jane kept running, she would find him later and apologize. As she turned her head back toward her destination she crashed into Beth and LW in her haste. 

“Jane.” The queen blinked as she threw her hand out against the wall to steady herself. LW squawked at the sudden jolt. Jane couldn’t stop. She just couldn’t. Beth couldn’t help and worse she wouldn’t understand. No one would, and worse Beth would talk to the Wrath and the King would try to punch V into Jane’s arms and then V would look for someone to stab. No she had to keep this bottled inside, and right now it was bubbling up to the surface. She didn’t know how long she was going to keep it contained. 

She ran flat out down the hallway. She whizzed past a startled Ehlena and Manny. She blew past two of the BoB coming out of the training room. Payne tried to stop her but Jane, in an inspired moment spun out of her reach and dodged under her arm. Finally, she made it to the double doors of the garage. She crashed through the metal doors like a New England Patriot through a defensive line. The cold air sliced through her scrubs and lab coat. The lights on her SAAB flashed as she unlocked the doors. She shot into the drivers seat and had the car spinning out of her parking space before her door was closed. 

Someone must have been tracking her because the gates were swinging open before she had a chance to push the buttons. She was grateful for whoever it was. The full moon rode high in the sky as she raced down the mountain. She could feel V’s Mhis trying to confuse her, but it felt more like a warm caress against her being than anything malignant. 

In a manner of moments she nearly lost her undercarriage shooting out onto the road. She fishtailed over into oncoming traffic before snatching at the wheel and righting the car. She was rewarded with blaring car horn. As if she could die twice. 

She drove around Caldwell not really having a destination in mind. She tried to concentrate on a thought, but it wouldn’t stay still. Nothing was making sense, and finally she gave up on the effort. 

Thinking was overrated anyways. The tears tumbled from her eyes unimpeded. She could feel the front of her shirt starting to soak through with her tears. 

What the hell was going on? Loving V was not easy, not that he promised her it would be, hell they met while he was under her knife with a gunshot wound. What did she expect really? The male was broken, damaged beyond repair centuries before she was even born, and there wasn’t anything she could do that would fix that. She wasn’t naive enough to think her love could repair him, but a tiny part of her thought that he was worth the effort. 

Was she worth the effort? When the lesser shot her V had been prepared to perform the most profane ritual to bring her back. She thanked the Virgin Scribe every day that he had been stopped. Jane would have stabbed her own chest if she had come back as a lesser, right before killing Vishous for handing her over to the Omega. 

But was that honest to goodness love? Had it been love that drove him to think it was right to imbue her with that black blood from the vampiric devil? Or maybe it was just his mad grab for any warmth he could find. Or was it his was of trying to replace Butch since the brother found a shellan. 

Truth is she wasn’t sure that V didn’t still love Butch, and Butch certainly wasn’t pushing V away. 

Was Jane jealous of their relationship?

No she wasn’t. Vishous wasn’t heterosexual, and that never bothered Jane, and Butch had planted his flag in her mate’s heart before she showed up. Besides, V and Butch were tied tighter through that prophecy than anything her and V could have. 

She swung her car into the parking lot of a coffee shop. She climbed out and strode inside the quaint little joint, shivering. Running out of the mansion she’d forgotten to snag her coat. The sweet smell of roasting beans and vanilla hit her full in the face. She took a reflexive inhale of the sweet scent. Since Phury had quit his Red Smoke she found she missed the coffee smell around the house. 

She ordered a flat white and a black and white cookie. 

All of the tables were occupied with smiling couples or CUNY students tapping away at their Macs. She parked herself in the only open club chair in front of the fireplace. The cookie disappeared in seconds, but she took her time with the coffee. Her grey matter a swirl of emotions. 

“Are you a nurse at St. Francis?” A jingle bell voice broke through the fog. 

Jane blinked herself back into reality, her coffee cup now cold and empty. She looked up at the speaker. A young woman with striking hazel eyes smiled at her down at her. The coffee show was a little quieter now, the student replaced with working Joes on their way home and looking for a caffeine pick me up. 

She blinked again, sweeping away the cobwebs in her mind, “Um no I was a ER doctor.” Jane answered. “A few years ago.” She set her cup on the wooden side table beside her chair. 

The woman smiled again and parked herself in the empty chair across from Jane, her own coffee cup still steaming. “Would you happen to remember a Dr Manello?”

Jane nodded. “Of course I worked with him for several years, he was my boss in fact.” This was the longest conversation she had had with someone outside of the family in years. It was giving her a loose tongue, but it felt good to be away from the mansion and not have someone’s life hanging in the balance. 

The woman scooted to the edge of her seat. “He’s been missing for nearly two years. Do you know what happened to him?” 

The klaxon started to blare in Jane’s mind. Loose lips were one thing, compromising the mansion was another thing entirely. “Why? Who are you?” Her eyes narrowed. This woman wasn’t a typical Manny thot. He liked them leggy, blonde and wispy thin. Well before Payne that’s what he liked. This woman, though on the petite side was a healthy weight, and barely five feet tall, and she looked too young to have been to Mannys liking. He wasn’t into cougars, but he wasn’t keen on going to jail either. 

Jane might have a sudden case of the loose lips but she wasn’t about to sink the brotherhoods ship. The BDB was too important to the race to compromise them and not even being their chief surgeon or V’s shellen would save her from any of the hellren’s wrath if their shellens were put in harms way. 

The woman tucked a stray strand of her thick black hair behind her ear, her cheeks coloring slightly. “It’s sort of complicated.”

Jane fixed her money green eyes on the girl. “I do complicated very well. You can start with who you are.”

“I’d really prefer to talk to Dr. Manello myself if it’s ok with you.” The woman insisted. 

“That’s too damn bad, because if you want to get to him in any shape or form you have to speak to me first and then I might have a few more hoops for you to jump through.” The bullshit with V was making Jane snarky. 

The woman sighed, took a sip of her coffee then started to fidget with her napkin. “I’m Jo Early and um I just recently found out that Dr. Manello is my brother.”

Jane sputtered. “What? How do you know? Where did you find out? What happened? Who have you told? Do you know who your father is?”

Jo blinked as the questioned hit her between the eyes in rapid succession. “Hold up one question at a time.”

Jane stood up suddenly. They were in a public place about to talk about Brotherhood matters. “We might need to take this some place else.” Her mind hungrily grasped at this puzzle, it was easier than thinking about the bullshit going on with Vishous right now. “Have you had dinner yet? I know of a great place where we won’t be disturbed.” Jo looked at Jane. “It’s not like that.” She waited for Jo to finish her own coffee. “Ever been to Sal’s?”

“The old Rat Pack place.” Jo shook her head. “I’ve always been too scared to go in there.” The girl visibly shivered. Jane would have rolled her eyes if she weren’t pulling out her phone shooting a text to Sal’s. iAm was with his mate, she knew better than to bother him right now, but she did have the number to his sous chef, who knew enough about what was going on to be discreet when it came to iAm and his business. 

“You think the mafia is going to kill you for wanting eggplant Parmesan?” Jane quirked an eyebrow at the girl, Jo’s face colored nicely. She tapped out a quick message to Manny and Butch, biting her lip and she hesitated over V’s name. Should she contact him to dig through Jo’s life or should she let Manny and Butch meet her first? Well, either way they would want to know all the details and if she girl was going to be with her brothers in any way Wrath was going to want all the deets about the girl. Gripping her phone harder than was necessary she tapped out a very quick message to V with Jo’s name and brief description. That would be enough for him. Her phone beeped. They could have the corner booth near the kitchen door at Sal’s and Butch and Manny was leaving the mansion right now. Zadist was going to be backup. “Ok listen I’ve got to take care of some stuff. Meet me at Sal’s in 30 minutes and we can talk about all of this.” She grabbed her keys off the table beside her empty cup. 

“Wait, what’s going on?” Jo stood up. “Why should I go anywhere with you. Who are you?”

“Look I can explain everything, just not here ok. If you want answers you better be at Sal’s in twenty minutes.” She didn’t really have time for this, but she held her breath and waited for Jo’s answer. 

“Fine.” Jo nodded, drained her cup on her way to the door. She looked back at Jane, “But if you’re planning something just know that I know people.” Jane was impressed at the girl’s balls even though Jane was certain she could beat the girl up without even trying. 

Jane jumped into her car, revving her engine and peeling out of the parking lot, pointing her car toward the highway. They really needed to track down Butch and Manny’s father. The male was a spermicidal menace, and from the deathly pallor Jane noticed creeping up on Jo’s face, the girl was going to go through the change. 

“Fuck.” The doctor muttered.


End file.
